10 best uses for Conkers — Peckham Conker Club

Because of our love for the game, it is all too easy to forget that conkers are more than an object that’s a bit fun to crack open. Conkers, more formally known as a horse-chestnut, are a plant found all over the world, with a number of uses. In this article we are going to explore a few of these – be they decorative, practical, or just for fun.

1 Wreaths

Conkers are fantastic for making wreaths. So come holiday time, you might want to have a few conkers kept away to make something beautiful to put on your front door. Use a glue gun, drill a hole through it and thread a wire through it (if this sounds a bit daunting you cant find everything you need to drill a hole through our online store) – the choice is yours! Top off your wreath with some ribbons or other natural materials such as leaves, especially if making one around Autumn, and you’ve got yourself an absolute showstopper to welcome guests to your home.

2 Christmas Decorations

Although not in season around Christmas time, the texture and warm colour of conkers fits perfectly. So if you’re putting up your tree and are looking for something to add more depth to your tree decorations, conkers could be the best choice for you. Like with the wreaths, you can drill and thread your conkers around the tree, and even paint them with different colours and patterns.

3 Natural Basket

Around Autumn time, a natural basket is a perfect way to add some life to your home! Add some conkers alongside some pines and acorns, and you’ll have a homely display of foraged materials to put on the table or by the side of the sofa.

Similarly, if you’re making a flower arrangement, having a few conkers lie amongst your flowers adds a lovely touch of depth, so its worth keeping in mind!

4 Keep your House Free of Spiders & Moths

Its no secret that, much to our dismay, our homes can become home to a lot of others who aren’t welcome.

Imagine that Autumn has come around, and you bring out your favourite sweater only to find it with holes all over – your wardrobe has become a moth’s dinner. If you’d like to avoid this dreaded and all too common scenario, putting a few conkers in your wardrobe or drawers will repel moths and keep your clothes intact because of a chemical called triterpenoid saponin found in the conker. Now you can go to that family lunch without having to hide those holes…

In a similar vein, again around Autumn time (are you sensing a theme here?), spiders quite like to set up shop in our homes. I should begin by saying that this point is only alleged as there has been no scientific evidence to prove this is true, but it is at the very least claim that placing conkers in the corners of a room can help repel house spiders. What is true however is that these can still be useful against other insects, so placing conkers around the house might still be something worth keeping in mind.

5 Keep Yourself Clean

Yes! Believe it or not, conkers can actually be used to keep yourself clean in a number of ways. That’s because conkers are a plant species in the soapberry family, and soapberries have been found to be rather good for exactly what you would expect due to a naturally occurring substance within them called saponin.

Conkers are rather good for making not only hand soap then, but laundry detergent and even shampoo!

To make soap, cut and boil them, add lemon and linseed, or simply grate and soak conkers to then mould them into a soap block. It is believed that the Vikings made their soap this way, and they were a fairly clean bunch, so this might be and arts and crafts project worth considering.

To make detergent, cut and soak your conkers for at least half an hour before washing and draining them, using the liquid as detergent. Likewise to make the shampoo soak some crushed conkers in warm water overnight. It should be noted however there have been some reports of clothes being stained by a yellow tinge, so to prevent this from happening if making your own detergent, remove the outer brown shell.

6 Light Pull

An amusing but very smart suggestion from this online blog is to use conkers as a light pull. Drill a hole through your conker (need a drill? You know where to go), and put it on the end of the string of your light pull. A charming and very seasonal way to make trips to the loo.

7 Medicinal Properties

As it happens, the horse chestnut may be so named in part because of how it can be used to treat ailments in horses such as sprains. This is due to a naturally occurring chemical inside the conkers called aescin, which has anti-inflammatory effects.

You might be thinking that this is fantastic for horse keepers, but what about you? Well, the good news is that this aescin is also good for treating bruises in humans! The bad news is you won’t be able to extract it yourself at home and use it safely, but at least its interesting to note right?

8 Protecting Beer Gardens

As mentioned before, horse chestnuts are not only native to England – they arrived only a few hundred years ago after all – but can in fact be found all over the world. Its no surprise therefore that people would have done their own interrogation and looked to understand what different plants can be used for.

In Germany, a tradition arose of planting the horse chestnut tree in beer gardens. Brewers would dig cellars to make lager, and to protect these cellars from summer heat they would plant the trees above, as they had wide spreading and dense canopies to protect from the sun, but their roots were also shallow and thus would not enter the caverns used to making lager.

Not so practical for everyday use, but definitely interesting to know!

9 Bonfire Night Explosions

A quick warning – do be careful when doing this. As it says in the title for this one, this does cause explosions, so although it’s quite fun please do watch out, and be careful as always playing with fire!

If you have a bonfire going, throwing a few conkers into the mix can make for an exciting addition! The heat will cause a build-up of steam inside the seed, which will result in crackles and explosions. So if you’re a bit of an adrenaline junkie and find roasting marshmallows a bit slow for your speed, this is definitely a fun idea to keep in mind.

10 Game of Conkers

Don’t say you didn’t expect to see this on the list. We are the Peckham Conker Club after all!

The game is what we all know and love – so need I say any more? It’s the best known and in our eyes also just generally the best use of conkers.

If you’re interested in playing then, and don’t know where to start, have a look at our other articles where we write about everything conkers, and have a peek at our online store too to get yourself started and ready to play with others.

What are Conkers used for? The 10 best uses for Conkers