I remember my Gran doing her Monday laundry , part of which was a pot-bellied and corrugated, galvanised barrel . As I recall, those many years past, clothes and ( hopefully)hot water were put in the barrel along with soap flakes and a chunk of Sunlight soap and the whole lot was agitated with a device called the Dolly Peg...it looked like a small legged stool with a 3 foot handle and a crossbar on the handle top. I may be in error with this, cos there was another long-handled device, a "Posher" , a hemisphere of spun and plated copper, with many holes that would admit the soapy water, making a weighty headed cudgel for pounding the clothing...to the ruination of many shirt and trouser buttons.
All the dhobying was eventually hung out on a long line and clipped in place with wooden pegs of split wood, bound with a length of stripped tin-can.
On the other hand, according to my North Country Missis, a Dolly Peg was just a 3 foot lump of wood, without any embellishment at all, but twas used in a similar barrel, for the same purpose.
Well, that was a trip down memory lane!
Ceeg