Orkney Image Library

The left-hand end of the 'thing' looks like an end-cap for a spar or pole, with a hole for a retaining screw. The looped end must surely be for a rope or line of some kind. The lack of any indication of scale is a drawback, but it doesn't look to be made for heavy loads. I'll submit a pic showing a possible arrangement, but I can't answer your query. No doubt somebody will.

Looks like a coal hammer.

is it a clanger from a bell?

I should have shown the scale right enough. It's about the size of a claw hammer.

I have a hammer something like this only wae a spanner on the other end, and it was from a horse ploo. It's aboot 14 inches long and a hefty weight also attached tae the ploo was what Rabbie Burns called a "Prattel"(In Tae a Moose!). The things for scraping earth fae the board, and so the plooman had all he needed in two hand tools unlike today where a plooman needs a big toolbox and might still need tae drive tae the workshop twathree times while plooan a few fields!.

Just a theory: a "standoff" on the end of a vertical mast.

Once the chunky end is secured on the end of a vertical mast, you could shackle on a small block (or pulley to the eye-ring then run (small) signal flags, shapes on string parallell to the mast.

For breaking up resin joints.

My thinking is very like yours, Anonymous, but confirmation from Grant that the 'end cap' or ferrule is in fact hollow (thus precluding the possibility of its being some sort of hammer) would be helpful. Am I the only one who sees a hole through the top left of the thing?

It's all solid iron I doot. I've been doing a lot of asking too, but still none the wiser.

Having had a look on Google I was wondering.
Could it be a bell clapper?

Like Price, I think hid could be a bell clapper. The pivot end looks tae hiv been bored, an no roonded for a rope. Could the hollow end hiv been filled o lead originally.

I agree Tommy about the pivot end - I should have put a shackle/pulley of some sort in my sketch rather than a bare rope. One reason I didn't go along with the bell-clapper idea, even after Grant told us the heavy end was solid, was that, as a total ignoramus re campanology, I imagined a clapper would need a pivot (or something similar) and an attachment for the actuating mechanism. The mystery object lacks the latter.

Having again had a look at bell clappers on google,the object looks OK in one way but, why the pointed end? If it is a clapper would the pointed end give a different tone to the blunt end? More questions than answers I doot.
To try and answer your query re campanology Ian.
As it is usually the bell that hits the clapper, not the other way round, all that is needed is a bolt or shakle to alow the clapper to hang suspended in the bell.

I am equally ignorant re campanology but could the "bell" have swung and let gravity hold the clapper still?

It widna be a stunning hammer, its looks a lot smaller than the one that lies about the hoose here, but the hammer head is a similar shape

I did know that some bells have 'loose' clappers suspended inside them (I used sometimes to ring the school bell by means of a hand-grip made of rope attached directly to the business-end of the clapper). But the pointed end of the mystery object bugs me. Wouldn't it knock 'eight bells' out of a bell?

This could be a farrier's tool...

Grant, whar did you find this....in a box,,,,dug up...in an auld hoose????

It was given to Kenny Irvine and turned up in his van after he retired. He has found a date on it, which he thinks is 1942.