After success with the clay spade what is this one for?

[Bob LambParticipant @boblamb44747]

Again, thanks to Peter for identifying the clay spade in a previous post.  Near it, in the same bothy there was another type of spade I had not seen before.  It is very much like a Cornish shovel but the blade is bent at quite an angle to the handle and the handle itself is longer than usual.  It looks like it might have been used to clean out a corner of a fairly deep hole.  My thought is a gravediggers corner spade?  I wait to be proved wrong yet again!  Bob

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Which one, the peat cutter or the French Drain spade ?

[peter1972Participant @peter1972]

A long-handled digging shovel similar to this:

https://www.bulldogprotools.com/bp1002

[Bob LambParticipant @boblamb44747]

Thanks for the replies – I thought the one next to the fork was a peat cutter but have never heard of a French drain spade.    Peter’s link to the long handled digging shovel was impressive – The video made digging look so easy!  Bob

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I think it’s a turf lifter.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The one next to the fork looks like a turf cutter. A peat spade has a long narrow parallel blade with a small right angle piece down its length to cut the width of the sod in one go. These could be either left or right handed.

[Eric OlthwaiteParticipant @ericolthwaite]

Spear & Jackson No. 5?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

We used to call the angled one a trench spade or shovel. The very angled head lets you clear loose material from the bottom of a narrow trench rather than actually cutting the trench and a french drain is a trench with a pipe and gravel in it.

Plenty of peat spades with that shape blade, meant for the initial removal od the top layer to get to the peat then the cutter that Bazyle described is used

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