dial. Also 7 tavelett, 9 dial. tallot, -ut, -art. [A West-of-England word, used from Cornwall to Berkshire, from Gloucestersh. to Cheshire, and in English-speaking parts of S. Wales; a. Welsh taflod or taflawd fem., loft, roof, in OIr. taibled a story, ad. med.L. tabulāta a boarded structure, a flooring, f. tabulāre to board, floor.] A loft formed by laying boards on the joists over a stable, cow-shed, or the like, commonly used as a hay-loft (hay-tallet); also ‘the unceiled space beneath the roof in any building; an attic’ (E.D.D.).
1586. Will I. Palfrye, Ilminster (Tanner). I … bequeath … one tallett of barke which is the tallett now over my myllhouse.
1607. J. Norden, Surv. Dial., v. 238. Some kind of lofts or hay tallets, as they call them in the West, that are not boorded.
1681. Ph. Henry, Diaries & Lett. (1882), 307. From ye lower Haybay & Tavelett they pitcht it & carry’d it on Pikehils to ye Carts.
1791. Life B. M. Carew (1802), 87. Let me lie and die in some hay-tallet.
1850. Sir T. Dyke Acland, in Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XI. II. 745. The humidity of the climate…. One of the peculiarities resulting from this cause is the building of a second storey or loft over all bullock-sheds; it is called a ‘tallat.’
1876. T. Hardy, Ethelberta, II. xlvi. Now up in the tallet with ye … and down with another lock or two of hay.
b. Comb. Tallet-ladder, the ladder giving access to the tallet.
1882. Blackmore, Christowell, xv. For the girls there was a tallat ladder.
