What is a wheelwright?

Wheelwrighting is the craft of building a wooden wheel - the kind that carried England’s carts, wagons and carriages before the rubber tyre. It is one of the most quietly sophisticated of all the wood trades, because a cart wheel is not a flat disc with spokes; it is a coned, pre-stressed structure of three different timbers, locked together under tension by a band of iron. The classic account of it is George Sturt’s The Wheelwright’s Shop, written from inside his own family firm, and it remains the book to read. The archive has not yet documented a working wheelwright; this entry sets out the craft until it can.

A traditional wheel is made of three woods, each chosen for a different job: elm for the hub (or nave), because its interlocked grain resists the splitting force of the spokes driven into it; oak for the spokes, for strength; and ash for the felloes, the curved segments of the rim, because it bends and takes shock. Over all of it goes an iron tyre, fitted hot. The wheelwright therefore has to be part carpenter, part engineer, and to work hand in glove with a blacksmith for the ironwork - a partnership of two trades around one object.

So wheelwrighting is not turning (though the hub is turned) and not general carpentry. It is a specialised structural craft, defined by the way wood and iron are made to hold each other in tension, and by the deliberate geometry - the dish - that lets a light wheel carry a heavy, swaying load over bad roads.

The nave (or hub or stock) is the central block. The spokes radiate from it; their outer ends are the tongues that fit into the rim. The felloes (pronounced "fellies") are the curved rim segments, each usually taking two spokes. The tyre (or strake, in older work made of separate plates) is the iron band. The dish is the slight cone of the wheel. The box is the bearing at the centre that runs on the axle. Spoke-set and shrinking-on are the critical operations of driving the spokes and fitting the hot tyre.

The nave is turned and the mortices for the spokes are cut into it. The spokes are driven into the nave and their outer tongues shaped. The felloes are made to a curve and fitted over the tongues, two spokes to a felloe, to complete the wooden rim - which is left very slightly too large. Then comes the moment the whole craft turns on: the blacksmith makes an iron tyre a touch smaller than the rim, heats it red so it expands, and the wheelwrights drop it over the wooden wheel and immediately quench it with water. As the iron cools it shrinks ferociously, crushing the felloes, spokes and nave together into one rigid, pre-stressed wheel - and the cloud of steam and scorched wood is the signature scene of the trade.

The dish is built in deliberately: the wheel is coned so that, as a cart sways and the load throws sideways, the lower spoke comes vertical exactly where it bears the weight, and the wheel resists collapse. Getting the dish, the spoke angles and the tyre tension right is the deep skill - a wheel made wrong either falls apart or fights the cart. It is engineering done entirely by eye, hand and fire.

The archive has not yet documented a wheelwright at work - has not seen the spokes driven or the tyre shrunk on. It is high on the list of crafts worth recording precisely because it is so endangered and so spectacular to watch, and because it pairs two trades, wheelwright and blacksmith, in a single operation. When the archive documents one, this page will carry the work.

The motor vehicle ended wheelwrighting as an everyday trade within a couple of generations, and it is now on the Heritage Crafts Red List of endangered crafts. The handful of wheelwrights who remain work in restoration and specialist new-build: carriages and coaches, gun carriages, showman’s and gypsy wagons, historic farm vehicles, and the occasional new wheel for a working horse-drawn turnout. The Worshipful Company of Wheelwrights keeps the trade’s identity alive. The skills survive, but in very few hands, and the pairing with a blacksmith who can still fit a tyre is itself a constraint.

It is learned by apprenticeship to one of the remaining wheelwrights. The archive’s Learn a Craft directory points to where the wood trades are taught.

How is a wooden cart wheel made?
The hub (nave) is turned and morticed; the spokes are driven into the hub; the curved rim segments (felloes) are fitted over the outer ends of the spokes; and finally a red-hot iron tyre, made slightly smaller than the rim, is dropped over it and quenched, so that as it cools it shrinks and clamps the whole wheel together under tension.

Why are cart wheels dished?
A traditional wheel is slightly coned, or "dished", rather than flat. The dish lets the wheel resist the sideways thrust of a swaying load and the lurch of rough ground, and keeps the lower spoke vertical under load where it carries the weight. It is a deliberate piece of engineering, not a fault.

Are wheelwrights still working in England?
Only a handful. The trade collapsed with the motor vehicle, and wheelwrighting is now a Red List endangered craft, kept alive by a few makers restoring carriages, gun carriages, gypsy wagons and historic vehicles, and by the Worshipful Company of Wheelwrights.