6 JULY 1991, Page 27

The box mangle, Erddig

Stones in a coffin-size box (and it could take a body if stones were scarce), huge chassis, gear-wheel, chain, rollers:, some dungeon-daughter of the likes of Skevington or Exeter, monstrous in a laundry.

They work it now weekends for crowds amazed at its useful violence — stoneweight pressing creases not confessions, yet wringing out last drops of longing for those Good Old Days.

Andrew Gibbons