ANTHONY DEW
ROCKING HORSES
I designed and made wooden rocking horses
(and making a good living doing it) for forty years.
Here are some of them...
In 1980 I quit my 'day' job at sea and bought enough wood to make six rocking horses.
I only had a few hand tools and worked in the garage of our house. The horses were carved out of pieces of pine glued together. I found a supplier for the little stirrups but made the metal swing irons and brackets myself, and a simple leather bridle and saddle, but all I could find for manes was human hair.
This is my son Sam, aged 2, test riding one of the first batch.
Nobody bought them, so I worked as a joiner, a postman and a woodwork teacher.
This was the very first horse I designed and made, in 1976.
A knock-kneed, funny-looking brute of a thing it seems to me now as I look at the photograph.
But it worked, it rocked...
I was twenty-eight, newly married and brimming ideas for things to make, but knew nothing about turning those ideas into a living.
Many people rode and enjoyed that horse. One lady exclaimed, ‘Oh how beautiful! Why doesn’t anyone make rocking horses anymore.’
I said, 'I do', and set off on a course that would dominate my life for forty years.
Sequoia head & body, on larch legs & rockers.
Approx 7ft. 6ins. (2.3m) long.
This is my eldest daughter Kate looking unusualy clean and demure, on one of our larger horses.
All three children were roped in to test and model our horses, and were happy to do so. Kate was particularly outgoing, keen to talk to customers and persuade them to buy one.
This photo was probably taken around 1986 for one of our brochures. Kate now runs craftcourses.com and is a successful businesswoman as well as mother.
When she was 4, my youngest daughter Lynn was asked what she'd like for her birthday.
'A rocking horse', she said.
By this time (1988) I was a full time rocking horse maker. We had our own shop named (obviously) The Rocking Horse Shop and 3 full time employees making all our components including leather and metalwork, and carving.
We were taking new orders almost every day and making half a dozen different sizes and types of new rocking horse as well as restorations. Lynn had her pick of rocking horses to ride, but she wanted one of her very own.
This is the horse I made for her, a Medium sized dapple grey which she named Mathilda. She and her friends often rode the horse which she stills owns and cherishes. Mathilda is now ridden by Lynn's own 3 children.
Keep on Rocking!
I made this bright orange rocker in 2016 as a wedding present for some friends. It is based on the Little Rocky rocking dinosaur (Pinnochio Rex - see below) which has a lolling red leather tongue and mouth that opens and snaps closed when the handle is pulled.
The happy couple's pet names for each other are Squirrel (him) and Dinosaur (her), hence the Rocking Dinosaur with a Red Squirrel's tail. They also have a little baby boy who is not big enough to ride, yet.
Here the little rocker is being test-ridden by my grand-daughter Margot, aged 9 months.
My 'Little Rocky' design
Birch plywood rockers with a choice of five swappable heads - Simple & Carved Horse heads, Rocking Dinosaur (Pinnochio Rex), Rocking Jumbo & Rocking Kangaroo.
Plans for home woodworkers to make any of these super little rockers, along with precision cut wooden parts and accessories, are available from The Rocking Horse Shop.
Here ridden by my grandson Abel, aged 7 months, Little Rockys are suitable for children aged up to around 3 years.
Making Rocking Horses was the first book devoted to the subject. It was published by David & Charles in 1984 and went on to be reprinted in more than a dozen impressions.
The book contained scale plans and instructions for home woodworkers to make Large or Small fully carved horses, a simple rocking horse with choice of heads, two hobby horses (horse's heads on sticks) and a chapter on restoration.
To complement the book we supplied actual size patterns and packs of ready-prepared timber and accessories - manes and tails, bridles and saddles, stirrups and metal fittings, glass eyes etc etc.
Because nothing quite like it had been done before, the book gave our embryo business The Rocking Horse Shop a tremendous boost. Customers flocked from all over!
This is one of our children (probably Kate) test riding one of my first Toddlers rocking horses.
Based on a traditional 17th Century style, our version was made from plywood, with solid wood footrests and head either carved (as shown) or a simple silhouette.
We made many versions of this design including a flat pack for home assembly. It worked really well, with an exciting yet safe rocking action. The plan is still available, published by The Rocking Horse Shop.
This (left) is the oldest surviving rocking horse in the world. It is reputed to have been made for Prince Charles, born 1600, to exercise his weak legs (he had rickets) and to teach him to ride.
King Charles later became known as a fine horseman, so the rocking horse had obviously done its job, before he came to a sorry end. The rocking horse was purchased by the Victoria & Albert Museum a few years ago and is on display at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, London.
I was able to sketch, measure and photograph it, and then made the version (right), my best guess as to what it was like when first made. It is the same size and employs the same materials as the original, which it was displayed alongside in the V&A.
This horse is therefore the ancestor of many thousands of others. It is very simply made and has no 'stops' to prevent it rocking right over. It would never pass our health and safety regulations today.
...and finally, Bigger Bertie. At five metres high this rocking horse is the largest of its kind in the world. It took about 800 hours to complete and its size meant he had to be worked on outdoors, although bad weather was a problem initially.
As an adult, you can understand exactly what a tiny child feels like when they're riding an ordinary rocking horse.
This is my 'Royal Cavalier', a 20th Century version of the old 17th Century 'slad-sided' rocking horse. It featured silk-screened flowers, a carved head with removable bridle and adjustable footrests, and was intended for children from around 3 to 6 years old.
We produced this horse from around 1984 to 1990. It was our first attempt at batch production and I even had a huge copy carving machine built to make the head since I knew it would be incredibly boring to have to hand carve hundreds of heads all the same.
It rocked well but never sold in the big numbers we'd hoped so we dropped it. Anyway I preferred hand carving one-offs, and could carve faster and better than the machine.