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~ Folklore, Customs and Characters ~
Although Gornal is well known for it's 'pig on the wall' legend,
there are indeed other strange customs, some maybe lost in time, these pages
discuss these characters, legends, customs and other peculiarities.
The 'Gornal' dress seems to be distinct perhaps unique to this
district of the Black Country, indeed to the rest of the country, but becoming more widely known
due to Gornal's travelling hawkers.
Writing in 1894, W.G Hancock, after a visit to Gornal, decribes the local womens appearance
in his article 'Peeps at the Black Country'.
Gornal Women.
She wears a snow-white sunbonnet, stiffly starched and ironed. In Summer time the dress is composed of loud-patterned print, which frequently reaches above their heavy hobnailed laced-up boots. Over this romanticlly pleasing dress appears a spotlessly white apron, across her shoulder snugly sits a shawl, and in dozens of cases these also form the head-dress. The hair is flatly pressed to the skull and packed behind into a capacious net of coarsest mesh, big earrings frequently droop from the lobes of her ears, which altogether tend to give her a gipsified appearance. ~
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