Wickham Place is the London home of Lord and Lady Southgate, their children and staff. Located in fashionable Belgravia it is a fine Georgian terrace house.
Today we are below stairs in the Wickham Place kitchen. At the sink, the scullery maid Agnes scrubs the copper pots used for the preparation of upstairs luncheon with a mixture of sand and soap. Mrs. Bradley, known by most downstairs staff as Cook, is occasionally filled with a momentarily maternal instinct for her poor, bedraggled scullery maid. Watching the poor girl with her brown curls coming loose from beneath her cap, huffing and puffing away as she scrubs, creates such a burst of emotion within her breast.
“Agnes. Agnes.”
“Yes Mrs. Bradley.”
“I think you’ve earned the right for a quick cooking lesson.”
“Oh! Oh really Mrs. Bradley!”
“Yes Agnes. Now, wash and dry your hands with some of that Sunlight. Make sure you scrub under your nails, girl! And then come and join me at the table. Clean hands are essential for a good cook, and we all know that cleanliness is next to godliness!”
Cook takes out some butter, milk and a bowl of eggs from the food safe. Going to her big heavy dark wood dresser she withdraws her Cornishware canister of sugar, some flour nutmeg and salt. She also brings over a fluted flan.
“Cor Mrs. Bradley! Are you going to show me how to make your famous soufflé?”
“Do you take me for fool Agnes?” She looks incredulously at her scullery maid, who sighs and lowers her shoulders at the rebuke. “You need to learn the basics of plain cooking girl, before I can teach you anything fancy. No! We’re going to make a good, plain, custard tart for Nanny and the children. I’m going to make the pastry, and you can make the custard. Now, do you think you can you break three eggs into that bowl there in front of you?”
“Oh yes Mrs. Bradley!”
Moments later Agnes is happily and purposefully breaking eggs against the edge of the bowl. Suddenly there is a crack and a plop. Cook looks up from making pastry to see that Agnes has accidently dropped an egg onto the deal tabletop where it has cracked open, the white oozing across the table’s surface. Agnes looks anxiously at Cook and before the older woman can speak, the poor scullery maid starts to cry.
“Oh heavens Agnes!” Cook exclaims, dusting off her floured hands on her apron.
“Sorry Mrs. Bradly,” Agnes sobs.
“Now girl! There’s no need for tears! No use crying over spilt milk, or a broken egg for that matter.” She smiles reassuring across at Agnes. “If I cried every time I dropped an egg, why, the road outside would be running with my tears!”
“It would, Mrs. Bradley?”
“Yes, girl! Now quick! Go fetch a cloth and clean that up, and then keep going.”
The Wickham Place kitchens are situated on the ground floor of Wickham Place, adjoining the Butler’s Pantry. It is dominated by big black leaded range, and next to it stands a heavy dark wood dresser that has been there for as long as anyone can remember. There is a white enamelled sink to one side with deep cupboards to house the necessary cleaning agents the scullery maid needs to keep the kitchen clean for the cook. In the middle of the kitchen stands Cook’s preserve, the pine deal table on which she does most of her preparation for both the meals served to the family upstairs and those for the downstairs staff.
The theme for the 14th of August “Looking Close… on Friday” is “eggs”. This tableaux is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood like the ladderback chair and the milk jug. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableaux include:
The eggs, including the broken egg are all 1:12 artisan miniatures with amazing attention to detail.
On Cook’s deal table is a Cornishware white and blue striped bowl which holds the eggs and also one of her Cornishware cannisters. Cornishware is a striped kitchenware brand trademarked to and manufactured by T.G. Green & Co Ltd. Originally introduced in the 1920s and manufactured in Church Gresley, Derbyshire, it was a huge success for the company and in the succeeding 30 years it was exported around the world. The company ceased production in June 2007 when the factory closed under the ownership of parent company, The Tableshop Group. The range was revived in 2009 after T.G. Green was bought by a trio of British investors.
Next to the Cornishware cannister stands a miniature Blue Calico milk jug. Traditional dark blue Burleigh Calico made in Staffordshire, England by Burgess & Leigh since 1851. It was inspired by Nineteenth Century indigo fabrics. Blue Calico is still made today, and still uses the traditional print transfer process, which makes each piece unique.
On the other side of the Cornishware cannister stands a bag of Dry Fork Four. The Dry Fork Milling Company was based in Dry Fork Virginia. They were well known for producing cornmeal. They were still producing cornmeal and flour into the 1950s. Today, part of the old mill buildings are used as a reception centre.
The sink in the background is littered with interesting items. On the left stands an old fashioned draining board which could be removed so that the space could then be used for other purposes. It is stacked with copper pots and a silver metal muffin tray. Near the taps is a box of Sunlight soap and a can of Vim, both cleaning essentials in any Edwardian household. Vim scouring powder was created by William Hesketh Lever (1st Viscount Leverhulme) and introduced to the market in 1904. It was produced at Port Sunlight in Wirrel, Merseyside, a model village built by Lever Brothers for the workers of their factories which produced the popular soap brands Lux, Lifebuoy and Sunlight. Sunlight Soap was first introduced in 1884.
To the left of the sink is the food safe with a birchwood broom leaning against it. In the days before refrigeration, or when refrigeration was expensive, perishable foods such as meat, butter, milk and eggs were kept in a food safe. Winter was easier than summer to keep food fresh and butter coolers and shallow bowls of cold water were early ways to keep things like milk and butter cool. A food safe was a wooden cupboard with doors and sides open to the air apart from a covering of fine galvanized wire mesh. This allowed the air to circulate while keeping insects out. There was usually an upper and a lower compartment, normally lined with what was known as American cloth, a fabric with a glazed or varnished wipe-clean surface. Refrigerators, like washing machines were American inventions and were not commonplace in even wealthy upper-class households until well after the Second World War.
