By Rafe Calder
A lovespoon is a spoon you cannot eat with, and its history depends on how much weight you give a single date: 1667.
People’s Collection Wales, a site run by Amgueddfa Cymru, Museum Wales, says lovespoons have been given as tokens of affection since at least the mid to late seventeenth century. It says the oldest known example dates to 1667 and is held at St Fagans National Museum of History near Cardiff. Wikipedia gives the same date and the same museum, and adds that the craft likely predates it. A lovespoon retailer’s history page says the earliest documented example dates to 1667 and calls the museum the Welsh Folk Museum, while another workshop’s page says the National Folk Museum of Wales at St Fagans. The museum is named in several different ways across the sources. We have not checked the date against the museum’s own catalogue. If a seller claims a lovespoon older than 1667, ask for the documentation.
What the courtship story says
Wikipedia says the lovespoon was originally given to a young woman by her suitor, to prove to her father that he could work wood and provide for a family. The retailer’s page adds a line that acceptance signalled interest and began courtship, which it ties to the word spooning. Both are traditional explanations and neither source gives a document. The retailer is also selling the spoons, so we treat its stories as claims.
One piece of wood
Wikipedia says lovespoons were traditionally carved from a single piece of wood, and it makes the comparison with Norwegian wedding spoons that emphasised wood-carving craftsmanship. The retailer’s page says carvers used minimal tools, a pocketknife, an axe and perhaps a saw, and that spoons ranged in length from 8 centimetres to a metre. It names sycamore as the primary wood and lists yew, oak, boxwood and fruit woods such as apple or wild cherry as alternatives, and says carvers chose close-grained wood that had to be dried to avoid splitting. Wikipedia names no woods. We have found the wood list in one retailer source only, so ask a carver which wood a spoon uses.
Symbols
Wikipedia lists hearts for love, locks for security, wheels for support for a loved one, anchors especially among sailors on voyages, and chains for the skill of the carver. The retailer’s list differs: chains for eternal togetherness, diamonds for wealth or fortune, crosses for faith, flowers for affection and dragons for protection. A chain can be a skill or a promise, depending on who is telling the story, and we found no source that settles the meanings. It is a good question to put to a carver: what does this symbol mean to you?
Is it only Welsh?
The sources split. Wikipedia says the earliest surviving lovespoon worldwide is German, dated 1664, three years before the Welsh example, and links the custom to Norway, where it mentions linked spoons from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. A retailer’s page says the tradition was practised across Celtic Europe, with Wales producing the finest examples. A workshop in Pembrokeshire, whose page says it has handcrafted lovespoons on site since 1969, says only Wales lays claim to the lovespoon tradition. Those three claims cannot all be right, and we are not choosing. The date and country are good questions for anyone who says a spoon is “authentically” anything.
The sailors’ theory
The Pembrokeshire workshop suggests sailors likely carved the first lovespoons, citing nautical images such as anchors, ships’ wheels and ships in early designs, and says the timbers it uses come from around the world partly because of that seafaring link. Wikipedia mentions sailors adding anchors on long voyages, which is a narrower claim. The workshop adds that an anchor is widely regarded as meaning stability but could also simply show a love of the sea, which is the most useful sentence in any of the sources about how to read a symbol. The sailors’ origin is a theory and no source gives a document for it.
More symbols
Wikipedia’s longer list includes horseshoes, crosses, bells, hearts, wheels and locks, and says caged balls indicated the number of children the suitor hoped for. We have not seen the sources behind these meanings, and the retailers give different ones, so the safest reading is that the symbols are a local code that a carver can explain.
Plain spoons, then ornate ones
The retailer says early spoons were simple, with initials and a hanging hole, and that over centuries the patterns grew more elaborate and became collectable instead of functional. It also says the tradition was practised across Celtic Europe, though Wales developed the most beautiful spoons with the most varied designs. That last part is the retailer’s opinion. Wikipedia describes the Norwegian parallel and does not rank anyone.
A gift for today
People’s Collection Wales says the tradition remains active, with contemporary carvers still producing pieces and some donated to museums in recent years. Wikipedia says lovespoons are now given as wedding and anniversary gifts, as well as for birthdays, babies, Christmas and Valentine’s Day. We found no source on the number of working carvers in Wales, or on how many lovespoons are made each year.
What we could not find
We found no dated survey of Welsh carvers, no certification scheme and no source on how to tell a hand-carved lovespoon from a machine-cut one. We are not quoting prices, and we are not naming a carver or a business.
What to ask
Ask who carved the spoon and where. Ask what wood it is and whether it was carved from one piece. Ask whether the symbols were chosen for a particular person or are stock designs. Ask whether it is meant to be hung or used. Ask how to keep the wood from drying out or splitting, since our sources do not give care advice beyond saying the wood should be dried.
We are not naming a workshop. We have not sourced one for this piece.
Roam first. Shop later.
If you carve lovespoons, the process for getting listed is at /sell-with-sephari/