Vardo (gypsy wagon)

A vardo is a traditional horse-drawn wagon used by English Romani Gypsies.Previous to this travelling people generally used bender tents - so called because they were made from supple branches which they bent inwards to support the fabric.

The design of the vardo included large wheels running outside the body of the van, which slopes outwards considerably towards the eaves. One of the most prominent families involved in building vardos were the Duntons of Reading, Berkshire.

There is evidence of the vardo in use as early as 1840 when Charles Dickens described Mrs. Jarley's van with its bed, stove, closet or larder and several chests (Old Curiosity Shop, ch. xxvii):

:'One half of it... was carpeted, and so partitioned off at the further end as to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed after the fashion of a berth on board ship, which was shaded, like the windows, with fair white curtains... The other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof. It also held a closet or larder, several chests, a great pitcher of water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of crockery. These latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which in that portion of the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle and a couple of well-thumbed tambourines'

ources

http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/gypsy/wagons.htm