Foot warmers: hot coals, hot water

Foot warmer Winton Mecca — This dual-purpose foot warmer and hot water bottle was first sold in 1910. Royal Winton brand, "Mecca" design, made by Grimwades, England. Photo by HomeThingsPast.

Ceramic hot water bottles were common in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As well as filling hot water containers to warm your bed, you could buy earthenware bottles to use as foot warmers or hand warmers too. Earlier foot warmers used to hold hot coals, or glowing wood, not warm water. In the same way, traditional bed warmers filled with embers were once more usual than hot water bottles.

If you were travelling in cold weather you would hope to have a foot warmer of some kind in your unheated carriage, sleigh, or train compartment. In the 17th and 18th centuries a pierced metal carrier for hot coals was a common solution for anyone who could afford one. They went on being used in the 19th century, while other styles of foot warmer came along too.

The simplest were punched tin in a wooden frame with an earthenware or iron pot inside. Brass was more stylish, and silver warmers were used by the wealthy, although you couldn’t actually rest your feet on them. Poor people travelling by wagon or sled could carry pre-heated stones or bricks with them, or even baked potatoes and flatirons, as described in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books.

tin brass foot warmers — American foot warmers. Brass, top left. Others pierced tin and wood. Sketch from an early 19th century book.

In the US these warmers were called foot stoves and were taken to church on winter Sundays to keep feet warm during long services. It seems the name and style was inspired by the Dutch style of foot warmer, called a stoof or stove, discussed below.

In bitter winter weather women carried to meeting little foot-stoves – metal boxes which stood on legs and were filled with hot coals at home, and a second time during the morning from the hearthstone of a neighbouring farm-house or a noon-house. These foot-warmers helped to make endurable to the goodwives the icy chill of the meeting-house; and round their mother’s foot-stove the shivering little children sat on their low crickets, warming their half-frozen fingers.
Alice Morse Earle, Sabbath in Puritan New England, 1891

As rail travel took off, foot warmers moved onto trains. First class rail services in cool climates often supplied foot warmers. These might be metal or earthenware containers for hot water, metal holders with hot brick slugs or even chemicals inside. Some later trains were designed with built-in “foot warmers”: areas of the floor with heated piping running underneath, for example. Early cars followed the same pattern. Before the days of fully heated vehicles foot warmers were included in the design.

Dutch foot stoves

foot warmers, Dutch stoves, in van Brekelenkam paintings — Mid-17th century paintings with women using foot warmers of the fire pot in wooden box kind. All by Dutch artist van Brekelenkam.

The Dutch used to be known for a certain kind of foot warmer found alongside other household furniture: a pierced box with an earthenware or metal pot holding glowing coals inside. They called it a stoof (stove) and you can see it in countless paintings from the 17th century on, like this one by Cornelis de Man c1670.

Dutch foot stoves warmers — Typically Dutch foot warmer (top) without its inner pot. Also a foot-warming "stove" from Northern Germany with stone top. Photos by Johan and Nyks

These foot stoves were also common in northern Germany. A stone slab was an alternative to the wooden top with holes. Similar foot-warming “boxes” were known in other countries too: see this French chaufferette. In Britain open fires were the most popular way of warming yourself indoors and foot warmers were not much used in the home, but some craftspeople had an earthenware pot of coals for heating their workshop, and this might be placed under a footstool.

Foot warmers are visible in the paintings, but they could be completely hidden under a long skirt or cloak. They were used more by women than men. Did men’s boots keep them warmer?

More on the Mecca foot warmer and other ceramic foot warmers

After the first plain cream queensware “Mecca” warmer in 1910 (“finest English Ivory Queens Ware”), they were made in various other “Royal Winton” decorative finishes and several different sizes.

Grimwades Ltd., Stoke-on-Trent, one of the best-known firms manufacturing an exhaustive range of popularly priced, useful and ornamental earthenware and china, and famous for their hygienic wares for the kitchen and pantry….An unique feature of the exhibit is the Mecca bed-bottle or foot-warmer in a variety of choice decorations. What nicer present for an invalid friend or wounded soldier!
1915 Guardian report on the British Industries Fair

ceramic foot warmers — British earthenware foot or bed warmers. Photo by Steve Parker

A more common shape of earthenware foot warmer, popular in the UK, was made by many different manufacturers (see photo left). Doulton’s were lent to passengers on an English railway.

Pictures

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here: wooden “stove” with holes, stone-top foot warmer, earthenware warmers. Also see this post on making your own tin foot warmer. More picture info here
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Tiled stoves, winter warmth

tiled stoves oven bench 19th century — A tiled stove with its "oven bench" in a Swiss museum house (photo by Yola Simon) and an 1861 painting of a living room/stove room in the Black Forest region of Germany.

Tiled stoves were a wonderful way of heating homes in Northern Europe. I’ve often wondered why the British never used them. The settlers in North America hardly used them either, even in regions with bitter cold winters. At first they seem to have followed the British idea of having a fire to warm yourself by, rather than trying to keep a whole room warm. In English-speaking countries the open hearth reigned supreme long after other nations had taken to stoves, although there were some iron stoves in the early USA and colonial New England…. but I’ll write about them another day. This is more about ceramic glazed tile stoves, sometimes known by their German name of Kachelofen.

Stoves warm rooms more efficiently and cleanly than open fires. Heat doesn’t escape up the chimney, it’s safer and easier to keep them going overnight, and you don’t have to chop down so many trees to fuel them. (The Green movement has rediscovered wood-burning stoves.)

What explanations could there be for the traditional British resistance to stoves for heating? Some I’ve considered are discussed in Priscilla Brewer’s From Fireplace to Cookstove: Technology and the Domestic Ideal in America – essential reading if you’re interested in the history of heating and cooking stoves in the US. Can you think of any apart from these three?

ceramic tiled heating stoves — Two Swedish stoves for the corner of a room, the plain one in a farm cottage, the floral one in a bigger house. The white stove on the right is in Lithuania. Swedish photos by HomeThingsPast. Lithuanian photo by Alma Pater

Milder winters than the rest of northern Continental Europe
Distaste for the “unhealthy” idea of an enclosed warm room with “no” fresh air, no open chimney
Feeling that open fires are part of the British way of life – supported by Lawrence Wright in the 1960s in Home Fires Burning

The stoves pictured here are not from mansions. There certainly are many fine stoves in palaces and grand houses, but these are the kind you can see in simple or middling houses.

Green seems to be a popular tile colour for rustic German stove rooms, with their characteristic benches and drying racks. In Sweden there are lots of tall, white stoves. If anyone knows more about regional styles of ceramic stove I’d love to hear from you.

A stove-room for the stove?

17th century stove room — This picture had the title "stove with bedroom" in 1659, in an educational book teaching Latin and English names for the things labelled with numbers. More on this in the text.

A stove used to mean a heated room, and not the thing heating it. In the 15th century the idea of keeping a living room warm, with heat radiating out through glazed tiles or iron panels, started to spread in German-speaking parts of Europe. There was still an open fire in the kitchen for cooking. This could be connected to an enclosed oven-box in the next room to create a warm space called the “stove” (German “Stube“). There might be enough heat to warm an adjacent bedroom too. It was a big step forward in comfort for people living in ordinary homes. A French traveller reported:

For the cold …. [German people] have stoves that heat in such a way that they are warm in their rooms, and in winter craftsmen do their work and keep their wives and children there and it takes very little wood to heat them.
Gilles le Bouvier, Livre de la description des pays, mid-15th century

Stove and furnishings 17th century — The stove-room, bedroom and their furnishings described in a 1659 school book.

In many countries the heating “box” is still called an oven (German Ofen), but English speakers have got used to calling it a stove, and have forgotten that stove used to mean a room. In the 17th century illustration above the oven is in the back right corner, numbered 5. Here’s a list of the things pictured: from the 1659 English edition of Comenius‘ school book Orbis Pictus, with the original punctuation.

The Stove 1. is beautified with an Arched-Roof 2. & wainscotted walls, 3 It is enlighted with Windows; It is heated with an Oven.

Its Utensils are, Benches, Stools, 7, Tables, 8, with Tressels, 9, Footstools, 10. and Cushions, 11.

There are also Tapestry hanged. 12. for soft lodging, in a sleeping-room, 13. there is a Bed 14. spread on a Bed-stead, 15. upon a Straw-pad, 16. with Sheets, 17. and Cover lids, 18. The Bolster 19. is under ones head. The Bed is covered with a Canopy 20. A Chamber-Pot 21 is for making water in.

Kachelofen stove Alsace — Another green tiled stove, this one from Alsace. Photo by Christina

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here: Swiss stove, Lithuanian stove, Alsatian stove. More picture info here
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Using a dough box or kneading trough

Dough box or bin — Classic dough box sloping sides, and legs that have been turned on a lathe. Photo by Nicholas Ford

If you’ve ever made bread, how much flour did your recipe call for? One pound? One kilo? Just enough for one or two tasty loaves? You need to get into a different mindset to understand a dough box. (Also called dough bin, dough trough, kneading trough or tray, with or without a lid and/or legs.)

Baking used to be an important weekly task in many households. Bread was a staple food in Europe and North America. People depended on having plenty of it: not just medieval peasants with scant resources, but 19th century middle-class families too. These might be big families, active, with farmhands or servants to feed as well.

A family of ten needed “three pecks” of flour for a week’s bread, according to Eliza Acton‘s advice around 1850. Three pecks is roughly 27 litres or 7 US gallons, so we’re thinking big sacks of flour for many households. The flour was tipped into a dough box or trough to start bread-making. It held the flour more tidily than a bowl. If the trough was on legs it didn’t need to sit on a table, and could be moved to a part of the room where the temperature was right.

Warmth

Kneading trough — Danish woman c1929 kneading dough in a wooden trough.

The flour had to be warmed in winter if it had come in from a cold barn or cellar, and a dough box was a good place for that. Once the yeast was added the mixture had to stay quite warm for the dough to rise into a nice “sponge”, which would make light bread. You could knead the dough thoroughly in a box-shaped trough without spilling much flour.

The box’s position (near the fire?) was important. The lid was good for keeping in the warmth, and it protected the dough from mice, ash, or other horrors: especially useful if the dough was left to rise a long time. Overnight was not unusual. Slow rising generally improved flavour and texture, and did not require temperatures near to blood heat.

The lid offered a surface for shaping the risen dough into loaves and then leaving them to rise again after being handled. Some lids had tray sides to make carrying the bread to the oven simpler. A kneading trough with no lid was covered with a cloth. A lidded box could be used for storing bread.

Why not bake every day or two?

There are many other jobs to do.
Getting an old brick or stone oven hot enough to bake bread took time, a couple of hours or more. You used valuable fuel, and had to rake hot ashes out before putting the loaves in with a peel.
In New England and Europe some people used a shared bakehouse, and had their turn once a week.

To make Bread … Put half a bushel of good flour into a trough, or kneading tub; mix with it between four and five quarts of warm water, and a pint and a half of good yeast, put it into the flour, and stir it well with your hands till it becomes tough. Let it rise about an hour and twenty minutes, or less if it rises fast; then, before it falls, add four quarts more of warm water, and half a pound of salt; work it well, and cover it with a cloth. Put the fire then into the oven; and by the time it is warm enough, the dough will be ready. Make the loaves about five pounds each; sweep out the oven very clean and quick, and put in the bread: shut it up close, and two hours and a half will bake it.
The Domestic Encyclopedia, Willich & Cooper, Philadelphia, 1821

In Making Authentic Pennsylvania Dutch Furniture John Shea says:

In practically all the colonies, dough tables and bins were essential items of kitchen equipment. Without them, how could the colonists’ “daily bread” have been produced? Usually, these items were made of pine, poplar or similar softwoods. Some of the most handsome models were made of walnut.
One interesting point about the design and construction of Pennsylvania dough tables and bins is that you rarely see two of them that were designed exactly the same.

He says a typical dough box from that part of the world has curved handles spanning the lid. Slanting sides are the norm, and the box shape doesn’t vary much, but if the box has legs their designs can be quite different. A photograph of an exceptional 18th century box shows fine painted floral decoration, with a German folk art look.

Kneading dough in troughs — Swedish dough trough in a kitchen 1889 (detail from Andreas Zorn painting). 15th century German baker. 2500-year old terracotta woman (Greek?) from Munich Museum of Antiquities.

And…

Some French dough bins have ornate carving and are polished on the outside.
Some Eastern European “kneading troughs” were bucket-shaped and used with a paddle.
No soap was used for cleaning a dough box for fear of tainting the flavour.

Thank you, and photo credit

Thank you to Rebecca who asked a question here that got me to write this piece.

I always link to any photographer who’s licensed their work for reuse, and thanks go to Nicholas Ford for his great image of a dough box. (I wish I knew its date – antique or repro.) Other pictures are from Wikimedia: Danish woman, Swedish girl, German baker, terracotta woman (photo by Matthias Kabel).
More picture info here
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Rocking cradles – wood or wicker

Wooden cradle 1600s — Oak hooded cradle, English, 1683, carved initials, alongside 16th and 17th century oak furniture. Photo by HomeThingsPast

Cradle designs have changed, but are parents’ concerns any different? 200 years ago people were writing about the well-known dilemma: how much can I let my baby sleep in the day without stopping it from sleeping well at night?

It only remains…to say something of the cradle…I believe there is no doubt but the custom of laying children down awake, and rocking them in a cradle in the day time, or…in the evening when they are to go into their night’s sleep, as it is called, may [make] them sometimes more wakeful in the night… From: A Treatise on the … Management of Infants, 1784*

wicker rocking cradle with hood — Wicker cradle on oak rockers used by first baby born to settlers in America, probably. Dutch origins, c1620?*. Photo by Sarah Houghton

Two of the cradles pictured on this page are 300-400 years old, but they look much the same as cradles from only 100 years ago. For centuries, babies in Western Europe and North America were put into small baskets or boxes raised slightly off the floor, on rockers, with or without a hood. Rocking cradles like these have gone out of fashion, and we have different customs now.

Rockers, hoods, drapes, handles, straps

Babies could be strapped in, either with strips of cloth tied right round the whole thing, threaded through holes, or attached to wooden knobs or basketry handles. The child was protected from draughts and damp floors, especially in a hooded cradle. Wicker cradles often had fabric drapes over the hood for extra warmth and daytime darkness.

Child rocking baby in wicker cradle — Hand- rocking in: A Little Girl Rocking a Cradle, c1655, Nicholas Maes (detail)

A small cradle can be rocked by an older sibling or a busy adult with a foot to spare for rocking while her hands are busy with other tasks. It can be lifted to another place using handles or convenient bits of wood-carving. Overall, the baby was fairly safe but questions remain. Was it left alone? What about mice in a world without chemical pest control? Would a busy carer tie the baby in and neglect it?

I had made it an invariable rule always to dress and undress my infant, never suffered it to be placed in a cradle, nor to be fed out of my presence. A basket of an oblong shape with four handles (with a pillow and a small bolster) was her bed by day: at night she slept with me. I had too often heard of the neglect which servants show to young children, and I resolved never to expose an infant of mine either to their ignorance or inattention. From: Mrs. Robinson’s Memoirs, looking back at the 1770s*

Wooden rocking cradle — Simple wooden cradle from the Scottish Western Isles. Holes for cord ties. Photo by HomeThingsPast

Materials and styles varied regionally, though the basics stayed the same. Planks of wood from big trees were available inmuch of Britain and Scandinavia. Numerous paintings of Dutch domestic life confirm that wicker cradles were common in the Netherlands. Cradles were ornamented with colourful folk art in areas with strong traditions of painting on wooden furniture.

Natural rocking

The last word goes to the 18th century “expert” quoted earlier:

Painted cradle — Cradle from Swedish farmhouse. Painted and carved traditional folk art decoration. Photo by Wolfgang Sauber

I cannot help thinking, there is something so truly natural, as well as pleasant, in the wavy motion of a cradle, and so like what children have been used to before they are born, ….that, always wishing to follow nature as I do, I cannot, on the whole, but give an opinion rather in favour of the cradle. From: …Management of Infants, 1784*

Notes

* Michael Underwood, A treatise on the diseases of children, with directions for the management of infants from the birth; especially such as are brought up by hand, London 1784
* Memoirs of the late Mrs. Robinson, written by herself. With some posthumous pieces. Edited by her daughter, M. E. Robinson, London 1801
* More about the American wicker cradle picture here.

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here:
Dutch-American wicker cradle, Swedish cradle.
More picture info here
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Tea caddies

18th century tea caddy — Tea caddy, c1780s, copper with enamel surface decoration, pink peonies in famille rose colours, made in China for Western buyers. Photo by VeronikaB

Tea first arrived in Europe in 1610, when Dutch traders brought some back from Asia to the Netherlands. It reached England in the 1640s and soon became a fashionable drink in London, but it was not something you made at home. If you wanted to drink it in private you had to order a cup from one of the smart coffee-houses where all the new beverages – coffee, chocolate, and tea – were served.

To begin with tea was kept in porcelain jars that had travelled with it from China. Storage for tea became more and more varied once people were able to buy the leaves to brew at home. They had to be wealthy. Tea was so expensive that it was protected from pilfering. One pound (450g) could cost more than a skilled workman’s weekly wage. By 1700 well-to-do households had lockable wooden tea chests holding canisters full of the precious leaves. The lady of the house kept the key, and servants had no access.

A few tea canisters – not yet called caddies – travelled across the Atlantic with early Dutch and British migrants to North America. Matching pairs of canisters were popular for keeping a choice of teas to hand – usually green tea and black tea. Later tea chests sometimes had a third canister and/or a mixing bowl for creating your own blend.

wooden caddy with 2 canisters and bowl — Varnished caddy box with two wooden caddies and glass mixing bowl inside, 19th century. Photo by Leeds Museums

Silver, fruitwood, and other caddies

English silversmiths soon started to make very fine caddies along with beautiful teapots, trays, caddy spoons, and other silver teaware reflecting the owners’ wealth and status. Antique silver and silver-gilt tea caddies attract high bids at auction today, with prices in tens of thousands of dollars for the best of them.

The earliest silver caddies in America were made in the first part of the 18th century – not long before a historic interruption to the growth of tea-drinking in that part of the world. Tea taxes imposed by the British government led to the Boston Tea Party, and, not surprisingly, all this discouraged American craftsmen from making caddies and other tea paraphernalia.

Today’s tea caddies belong in the kitchen, but earlier ones were for public display. A tea table was brought to the drawing room and set beside the lady of the house. A fine tea service with caddy was laid out for her, and she would take charge of preparing the luxurious beverage. In the 19th century she might have a special three-legged teapoy table or pedestal chest with her caddies stored under a flip-up lid.

pear shaped tea caddy — Lockable pear tea caddy, Georgian. The grain shows it was turned from one piece of wood, except for the stem. Photo by HomeThingsPast

Caddy designs proliferated, and most had a well-crafted lock and key. Some were chinoiserie influenced by Asian decorative arts. Furniture designers like Chippendale contributed chests and caddies in Georgian cabinet-maker style. As well as ceramic and silver caddies there were containers made from tortoiseshell, copper, painted papier-maché, glass, and exotic woods lined with foil. Ornamentation might include ivory, mother-of-pearl, enamel, or Regency penwork. Caddies covered in rolled paper filigree work were popular from about 1770 to 1815, some of them professionally finished and some bought ready for ladies to decorate at home.

One enduringly popular type of wooden caddy is carved in the shape of a fruit – often an apple or pear – and these are very sought-after today, fetching high prices, especially the earlier ones. They may be made of the fruitwood appropriate for their shape – like a pear caddy made of pearwood. They were inspired by Chinese containers in the shape of an egg plant or aubergine: a good luck fruit.

The tea caddy got its current name around 1800, from a Chinese and Malay measure of weight (cati) that was slightly more than a pound.

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here:
enamelled floral caddy, wooden caddy box. More picture info here

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Delft blue tiles – not always blue, not always from Delft

early delft tiles blue pictures — Dutch tiles, probably 1660s, with an animal or small portrait from everyday life on each. Nail marks in the corners show how tiles were held firm during the manufacturing process. In Museum Amstelkring. Photo by Ard Hesselink

The history of Delft tiles goes back to the early 1600s when blue and white porcelain from China first arrived in the Netherlands. It was much admired and Dutch potters wanted to imitate the look, even though they couldn’t recreate true Chinese porcelain.

Potteries in Delft had some success with good quality blue and white glazed earthenware. Craftsmen in the city who were already making multi-coloured tiles soon started to work with the new colour scheme.

The tile-makers began by rolling out a clay mixture and cutting squares from it by pressing a wooden frame into the clay. Typically these were 1 cm deep with 13 cm edges. They were dried before firing in a kiln heated to around 1000°C. Next liquid white tin glaze was spread on the upper surface and left to dry naturally.

Decorating the surface

delft tiles late 1600s — "New" purplish colour, based on manganese, used with blue for the dairy of Dyrham Park, built in late 1600s. This grand English house featured Dutch decorative arts when William of Orange was king. Photo by Angus Kirk.

Decorative scenes were sketched on paper. Pricking through the outlines with a pin created a stencil, or pricked transfer, called a spons. Then a bag of charcoal dust was rubbed through the pinholes onto the glaze. Painters followed the charcoal tracing and sometimes added freehand shading to the design. The characteristic cobalt blue decoration fused into the opaque white surface during a second firing. Manganese-based purple, introduced in the later 17th century, was sometimes chosen as an alternative to blue.

Dutch homes used tiles generously round chimneypieces and stoves, in kitchens, and decorating hallways or stairs. Scenes from everyday life were popular: children playing, animals, workers, soldiers, or ships and harbours.

“Delft” tiles were made in other parts of the Netherlands too, for export as well as for local buyers. Social and economic trends meant that ceramic production was centred on Delft by about 1700, but was greatly reduced in that city by 1800.*

delft tiles 19th century — Panel of tiles comes from a kitchen in the 17th C Willets-Holthuysen house (Amsterdam) renovated in the 1860s. Other birdcages and bigger pictorial panels are set in expanses of plain off-white tiling. Photo by André.

Antique hand-made tiles don’t look as smooth as reproductions made in modern factories. The glaze is more crackled, with colour variations in the white, and there may be indentations where the tiles were held in place by nails in the early stages before firing.

The Delft style and technique was used for a range of household and ornamental ceramics – often called Delftware or Delft Blue – not just for tiles. By the later 19th century Dutch tile manufacturers were losing out to industrial competitors elsewhere in Europe, but the Delft tile name lives on and is still popular today, whether new or antique.

More tile history from the Netherlands Tile Museum.

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here:
Early Delft tiles, Manganese tiles in England, Birdcage tile panel, More picture info here

Notes

*According to de Vries and van der Woude in The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815

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Historic kitchens – visiting with eyes wide open

16th century kitchen fireplace - Tudor England — Open fireplace 10ft across in the 16th century kitchen at Cotehele House, Cornwall, England. See how many things you recognise before reading lower down the page. Photo by Lee Morgan.

Whenever I travel I look out for historic houses, especially if they have kitchens worth visiting, and enjoy picking out bits and pieces for a closer look.

And yet the room often isn’t the way it would have looked at any time in its life. The picture above is of a 16th century English manor house kitchen, amazingly unchanged in its basic structure. The Tudor open hearth with old iron pots and logs in a smoke-blackened fireplace is wonderful, but when did that protective fireguard appear? The things on the shelves come from various different periods in the life of the house. When and where did each pot, plate, or tool start its useful life? Does knowing matter? For myself, I enjoy seeing a kaleidoscope of things that have belonged to the house over the generations – but it’s still good to know what’s what.*

What can you identify in the picture?

Ironware

In the fireplace the classic iron kettle hanging on a chimney crane is centuries-old way of heating water. The crane may have arrived in the kitchen in the 17th or 18th century to replace a simpler kind of hanger. There’s also an “idleback” kettle tilter to help with pouring, probably not there originally. The urn to the left has a brass tap that may be relatively modern. The assorted spoons, ladles, and skimmers look timeless; you’d have to examine them hands-on to try guessing their dates. A trivet sits under the red cloth. Out of sight above the mantel-shelf are racks for roasting spits, and a cradle-spit for roasting small birds or joints of meat is hanging down into the upper left of the picture. Many big kitchens acquired fancier mechanised roasting equipment and cooking ranges or stoves well before 1900, but I understand this room was in use, unmodernised, until 1946. (There’s an old oven in one of the walls you can’t see.)

Kitchen utensils 1900s — Selected utensils have been numbered to help with the discussion. Some are probably 19th century like the mug, and others could be much earlier, e.g. the pewter plates.

Smaller iron things on the shelves and nearby include two pairs of sugar cutters (3), a rushlight holder (7), lemon squeezer (1), and vegetable cutter (2) – suitable for hacking up root vegetables and big cabbages.

Woodware

A wooden salt box (4) hanging to the left of the fireplace has a traditional sloping lid and carved hanging loop. On the shelf below is a nice turned bowl. The two flat moulds with decorative carving (10) have left me wondering. Are they unusually long, flat butter moulds, or an uncommon kind of gingerbread mould with sides, or something else?

Biscuit pricker

The small wooden stamp with a round handle (8) is a biscuit pricker. With lots of little needles on the base, it was used before baking to perforate the dough for thin crackers, to help them stay flat in the oven. Think of it when you see the holes in British water biscuits or American graham crackers. The metal stamp (9) is probably a cookie cutter or biscuit docker: for cutting out small baked goods and possibly adding a pattern.

Water Biscuits: Into one pound of flour rub three ounces of butter, add a sufficient quantity of water to make it a stiff dough; well knead it, and roll it as thin as wafers; prick with a biscuit-pricker, and bake a very pale brown. (1870s UK recipe)

Other things

On the shelves are pewter plates and a metal cloche or dish-cover (5) that looks factory-made. The earthenware mug (6) is mocha ware, almost certainly for beer. This design with coloured bands and black-brown “trees” first appeared in the very late 18th century and was often seen in 19th century pubs where it might be government-certified as a pint or half-pint measure. Similar earthenware mugs were also used for the servants’ ale in big houses.†

On the floor, next to the big unglazed ceramic storage pot with lid, is a stone mortar without its pestle. It has those familiar triangular bits round the upper edge, but what are they for? The hole in the wall is the kind that might be used as a candle and rushlight store: handily near the fire for lighting.

More

If you like to ID old kitchen items, try the things in a 1920s ranch kitchen or a German kitchen around 1930.

Notes

*Please note these are general remarks about all sorts of places, and are not in any way a criticism.

†See Pamela Sambrook’s Country House Brewing in England.

You may be interested in this list of links to sites that help you research kitchen antiques and historic culinary utensils.

Also see this piece about where a butter worker belongs. Was it always in the kitchen?

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. This is the original kitchen photo, or see more picture info here.

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Muff warmers & other antique hand warmers

antique muff or hand warmer — Small stoneware hot water bottle to fit inside a fur muff, c1910. Made by S. Maw, Son, & Sons in London. Photo by HomeThingsPast.

A hundred years ago a woman going out in the cold of winter could tuck a miniature hot water bottle inside her fur muff to keep her hands warm: like Maw’s Dainty Muff Warmer in the photo. This kind of hand warmer was on sale in late Victorian and Edwardian England.

The Thermos Hot-water Muff Warmer is a delightful little invention which is sure to be appreciated by my readers.
Ada Ballin, Womanhood, 1904

Poorer people had to find simpler ways of coping with a cold journey: heated stones or potatoes in a pocket, perhaps.

Ma slipped piping hot baked potatoes into their pockets to keep their fingers warm, Aunt Eliza’s flatirons were hot on the stove, ready to put at their feet in the sled. The blankets and the quilts and the buffalo robes were warmed, …
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods (story of the early 1870s in Wisconsin)

The branded stoneware muff warmer was a new take on elegant ceramic or silver hand warmers that ladies’ maids filled when their mistress was about to set out on a cold carriage ride or walk. With carrying strings and tight stoppers, and optional fabric cover, these were clearly designed for people going out from home.

Hand warmers indoors

earthenware brazier or hand warmer — Dutchwoman covers her hands with her skirt to warm them over a terracotta pan of glowing coals c1650. Detail of painting by Caesar van Everdingen.

Hands could be cold indoors too. Plenty of people made good use of a hand warmer in a room or workshop with neither fireplace nor stove. Most parts of Europe had a variety of portable warmth providers, from silver braziers to ceramic novelties to heat-retaining bricks.

An earthenware pot with glowing charcoal was a common source of portable heat. It might be put on the floor, used as local heating or as a foot warmer, but it could also be raised up to warm someone’s hands -as in the picture. At night it could be used in a bed wagon.

Portable containers for hot water or glowing embers are sometimes called hand warmers even when they are used for more than just cold hands.

Pocket warmers

Neat little hinged cases with sticks of charcoal inside were in use in Europe by the first world war, when some officers carried pocket warmers. Someone patented a design in the US for a similar case holding heated metal slugs but I don’t know if these were ever made. There were also tubes to hold charcoal rods.

vintage hand warmer — Pocket hand warmer. Probably early 20th century German. Photo by Matthias Kabel.

One of the newest inventions for winter comfort is a small hand warmer consisting of a hollow cylinder of fiber. A small pencil of heated charcoal is inserted through one end. The device will keep warm … for two hours.
Popular Science, USA, 1924

Chinese & Japanese handwarmers

You can’t really discuss antique handwarmers without mentioning the traditions of Eastern Asia.

Japanese homes might offer guests a small roundish ceramic pot with fuel in to warm their hands. Called a te-aburi , it could be used by an individual at the same time as a hibachi brazier big enough for a whole group of people.

Copper or bronze box-shape hand warmers a few inches across, often with carrying handles, were called shou lu in China: convenient, portable, with glowing coals inside. China and Japan had used both metal and ceramic hand warmers for many centuries. The perforations were an attractive part of the design as well as being functional. I like this tiny piece of Chinese pottery for warming 7th century hands.

chinese hand warmer — 16th or 17th century copper hand warmer, or shou lu, 13.5 cm (5 in) long. A classic Chinese design: box, perforated lid and handle. Photo by the British Museum

European travellers in the later 1800s and early 1900s were interested in the little heaters they saw in the Far East. Some people called them “Japanese muff warmers” and recommended them for nursing and medical purposes. One Englishman bought one for his own winter outings and praised the:

…little stoves which the Japanese women put in their sleeves and obi [wide sash]. They are small enough to push up the sleeve of a [European] coat, and…will keep alight for four or five hours.
Walter Tyndale, Japan and the Japanese, 1910

Hakkin hand warmer — Hakukin-kairo invented in 1923 by Niichi Matoba who founded the Hakkin company. Photo by Pete.

These could be lit with a simple paper fuse in 1910, but it was not long before a modern version of the metal “box” hand warmer was introduced to Japan. It was ignited with platinum catalyst technology. The Hakkin hand warmer or kairo, invented in 1923, looks like a cousin of the cigarette lighter, but I like to think it was inspired by its older ancestors.

S. Maw, Son, & Sons

This English company’s Dainty Muff Warmer was by no means an important product. Maw’s had been dealing in surgical and pharmaceutical supplies from 1807 onwards. One of their early earthenware products was an inhaler (from the 1860s or before). By the early 1900s they were making ceramic foot warmers as well as hand warmers, and also baby feeders, toothpaste pots and more. The company name varied over the years. From 1901-1920 they were S. Maw, Son, & Sons of Aldersgate Street, London.

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals and/or licenses:
German pocket warmer, Chinese warmer, Japanese warmer, Hakkin warmer, or see more picture info here.

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Medieval and Renaissance combs

H-comb France 1500 — French boxwood comb made c1500. Letters say "por vog servir", "to help you". ("Pour vous servir" in modern French) Photo by Thomas Cowart.

The most beautiful combs owned by ladies in late medieval and Renaissance times were highly ornamented in between their two rows of teeth. They look special, and they are. Some of the best were given as love tokens, and the fine, lacy carving included mottos, hearts, dates or initials. Did the young ladies use their admirers’ gifts? Or did the real hairdressing get done with plainer combs? The simple comb in the 17th century painting below looks easier to hold than a really gorgeous piece of carved wood.

H comb for combing hair 1600s — Combing a young lady's hair in 1633. From a Jan Miense Molenaer painting with various titles: Woman at her Toilet, Vanity, or Lady World.

And would you use your romantic, artistic comb for everyday hair hygiene? Apologies to anyone who is squeamish about infestation, but the fine-toothed side of the comb helped people deal with nits and lice, which people used to take more for granted than today.

H-combs

The H-shaped structure framing the teeth means that some people call these H-combs. Archaeologists call them double-sided. In Northern Europe there were double-sided H-combs in the early medieval period, while in the Middle East they go back more than 2000 years.

In late medieval Europe, especially France and Italy, beautifully decorated combs were considered a desirable gift from a knight to his lady. They could be teamed with a matching mirror and hair parter, and fitted into a dressing case (trousse de toilette), typically made of leather. Boxwood, bone and ivory were the most common materials; in all of these the teeth needed to be cut along the grain for strength. Boxwood is probably the only European wood dense enough to allow a special saw (a stadda) to cut fine teeth into the comb. These saws had two blades set close together and could cut 32 teeth to the inch or even more.† There are numerous pictures from medieval times onward showing ladies using plain H-combs, like the one from the Luttrell Psalter below right. Yet I don’t know of any showing an elaborately carved and pierced comb being used.

Medieval lady hold H comb as maid helps with her hair — A lady and her comb, with a maid helping arrange her hair. Early 14th century.

The most decorative combs started to become less popular as love gifts around 1600, though opinions vary on exactly when the fashion faded away. Plainer wooden H-combs were handmade up to 1900 or so. In the later 17th century there was a fashion for engraved tortoiseshell combs of this shape in the West Indies. Incised patterns with white filler, and frequent use of tulip designs, suggest combs there were influenced by Dutch craftsmanship.

†Information about the saw and other historical details come from Edward Pinto’s Treen and other wooden bygones. He casts doubt on the idea that many surviving combs were “liturgical combs” for priests to use when preparing for church rituals. Some of these were undoubtedly secular combs, made for rich people, but not for the clergy, he believes.

A lover may freely accept from her beloved these things: a handkerchief, a hair band, a circlet of gold or silver, a brooch for the breast, a mirror, a belt, a purse, a lace for clothes, a comb [pecten], sleeves, gloves, a ring, a box, a keepsake of the lover, and, to speak more generally, a lady can accept from her love whatever small gift may be useful in the care of her person, or may look charming, or may remind her of her lover, providing, however, that in accepting the gift it is clear that she is acting quite without avarice. Capellanus, De Amore, Book 2, c1180

Pivoting carved comb from 16th century France — Comb with two flat sections that pivot into a cross shape, from 16th century France. Photo by Kotomi Yamamura

boxwood comb 16th century French — French boxwood comb, 16th century. Photo by Kotomi Yamamura

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here: First comb, Other combs, More picture info here

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Trundle bed or truckle bed?

trundle bed 18th century — Trundle bed from Massachussetts, late 1700s.

What do trundle beds mean to you? The last one I saw was in a hotel where a small child’s rollaway lived under the main bed in daytime. This is exactly how they were used in thousands of American homes in the 19th century and before. And their history goes back much further too. For some people, trundle beds say “pioneers” or “log cabin” . You come across them in stories evoking that way of life.

By the time the dishes were all wiped and set away, the trundle bed was aired. Then, standing one on each side, Laura and Mary straightened the covers, tucked them in well at the foot and the sides, plumped up the pillows and put them in place. Then Ma pushed the trundle bed into its place under the big bed.
Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods

They were certainly used in more prosperous homes too, like the 18th century Lexington MA house in the first picture. Their origins are actually in the grandest homes of all. Royalty and noblemen used to have a servant sleeping at the foot of the bed. Their high bed draped in fine fabrics easily hid a small, simple rollaway during the day. These rolling or trundling beds probably first came into use in late medieval times.

trundle rope bed — 19th century cabin in Georgia with trundle. Both beds strung with rope. Photo by Beneteau Sailor.

Truckle beds are just the same thing by another name. Both truckle and trundle originally meant rollers or castors or little wheely things. There are a few other names around: trumble beds in some parts of the US, hurly beds in Scotland, and sometimes simply rolling beds, or the modern rollaway.

American trundle beds

In the log cabin pictured right, both the big and small bed have cords to form a base for the mattress. Mattress covers were filled with corn husks, straw or any suitable plant material that was available, and spread over the rope “netting”. Surprisingly often, songs in the USA of the later 1800s and early 1900s mentioned trundle beds. They evoked a sentimental image of life back home, a cosy childhood with Ma and Pa. (See sheet music below.) But as life got more prosperous for many, with bigger houses, space-saving trundle beds had other meanings too, and some American children from small homes got called “trundle bed trash”.

European trundle beds

trundle bed 1930s — Oklahoma c1939 - trundle bed in a one room cabin occupied by tenant farmers.

In Europe, truckle beds or trundle beds were less likely to summon up visions of a warm, cosy family life. They were rooted in a master or mistress and servant tradition, where it was not at all unusual to have a valet or maid sleeping in a small bed near the big one, ready to be of service when required.

The medieval picture below comes from a French romance where the wife is in the servant’s truckle bed, unbeknownst to her husband, to find out about his goings-on in a story which is more risqué than The Little House on The Prairie. In 17th century London Samuel Pepys’ maidservant slept in the room with both him and his wife, on occasion.

So all to bed. My wife and I in the high bed in our chamber, and Willet in the trundle bed, which she desired to lie in, by us.
Pepys’ Diary, 1667

trundle bed 15th century — Trundle bed for a nobleman's valet. Black and white sketch of illustration in 15th century French manuscript: Roman du Comte d'Artois.

victorian trundle bed — "Nestled in the trundle bed" sheet music with sentimental 19th century picture. USA, 1880s

Photos

Photographers credited in captions. Links to originals here: Rope bed, or see more picture info here

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