Shot ladder

Preparing to unload a barrel from the cart using a barrel ladder. Representation in the Nuremberg house books (1481)

A Schröter with his device: shot conductor as a slide for the drum, rope shot and shot tree . Representation in the Nuremberg house books (1516).

The Schrotleiter (or Rhenish Schradleiter ), also known as the barrel ladder , is a historical device used by the Schröter to lift and lower heavy barrels.

A shot ladder especially for wine barrels is called a wine ladder . In wine-growing regions, the wine ladder appears as a common figure in coats of arms .

Working device

A shot ladder, like an ordinary ladder, consists of two parallel strong stiles and two thinner, curved cross braces . In some old depictions, the spars are slightly curved, like the runners of a sled.

The shot ladder served the scrapers as an aid to be able to lift or unload heavy barrels more easily on an inclined plane . Schröter had the task of bringing barrels with beer or wine into the cellar, moving them there or picking them up again from the cellars. Loading and unloading the vehicles was also part of the Schröter's hard work.

When pulling up or lowering the barrels, scrapers used not only the shot ladder but also a rope (the shot rope or Schrad rope ) and, if necessary, a shot tree for support (see illustration).

Instead of a shot ladder, Schröter could also use two sturdy wooden poles that were not connected with cross braces. If the scraper arranged two such shotguns in parallel, he could pull the barrels up on them as if on a shot ladder or let them slide down. A strong wooden rod used by scrapers was called a scrap bar, scrap tree, or scrap wood , regardless of how the scraper used it at work. The spars of the shot ladders were also known as shot trees .

Wine ladder as heraldic figure

Both the appearance with straight and curved bars can be found in coats of arms. In contrast to "normal" ladders, the wine ladder in the coat of arms usually has two rungs, which are sometimes shown curved, even if the perspective does not allow that.

Wine ladders in coats of arms

• 

  Rastatt (until 1995)

• 

  Rastatt district

• 

  Tragwein , Upper Austria

• 

  Weinheim

• 

  Gau-Weinheim

Web links

Commons : Wine ladder  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Shot ladder in the Palatinate Dictionary , online version of the University of Trier
2. ^ Shot ladder in the Economic Encyclopedia by Johann Georg Krünitz
3. ↑ ^{a b} shot rope in the Palatinate dictionary, online version of the University of Trier
4. ↑ Schrotbaum in the Grammatical-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect by Johann Christoph Adelung
5. ↑ Schrotholz in the Palatinate Dictionary, online version of the University of Trier