Traeth Mawr -Building Mr Price's house , (mostly)

[Simond]

My mum has done, indeed at 89 3/4 still does, many things, but AFAIK has never attacked anything with a sledgehammer.

 

Respect!

 

Best

Simon

[ChrisN]

Hi Chris, that's a great looking interior. With regards to larders, I may be off kilter here, but my family home during my teenager years in the '80s was a knock through of two houses. Those two houses still only created an unassuming 2 1/2 up 2 1/2 down (my bedroom was the boxed in landing), except that it did have a small larder. That is, it did until my mum attacked it with a sledgehammer. The house itself was bought from the signalman at Havenhouse station.

 

I have looked through both my books on Welsh housing and neither appears to have any larders in any of the diagrams which surprised me as I remembered that some had larders.  (That of course proves nothing.)  I have transferred the Welsh Country house book back into the reading room and will flip through it looking for the word 'larder' next time I am there.  Thinking about it, the original, as far as I remember did not have one so I may just forget it.

[BG John]

A quick flick through the plans in The Welsh House by Iorwerth Peate showed quite a lot with a "Dairy" or a "Store", and a few with both, but no larders. No mention of larders in the index either. It's way down my list of books to read one day, so I don't know if there's any mention in the text.

[Penlan]

Welsh Dressers, I know we have a genuine one down here in west Cornwall, but it will be difficult to photograph it as there's only about 4 feet between the front of it and the wall opposite.

 

Larders, I will ask around, I have a couple of friends in the Village from west Wales, one who lived in a '2 up, 2 down' and the other lived in a 'But & Ben' as the Scottish would call it (2 roomed cottage) when they were a lot younger. 

 

We must have mentioned somewhere on here about the St Fagan's Museum by now. http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/stfagans/

Edited March 7, 2016 by Penlan

[BG John]

A quick look through the 200 odd photos I took at St Fagans shows a few potential larders

 

This one is definitely a dairy:

 

This looks like a larder:

 

I wonder if the little room on the left is a larder:

 

Is this cupboard a larder:

Edited March 7, 2016 by BG John

[Jock67B]

Afternoon Chris,

You probably know that I've been stuck in hospital for some time, and it's unlikely that I'll be able to catch up now, but I've put a post on Early Risers which you could glance at if you care to see what is happening and save me writing it out again! I'm looking forward to the next planning stages, and it really is good to be back!

Kind regards,

Jock.

[mike morley]

I wonder if the little room on the left is a larder:

DSCF9012.JPG

 

With that butter churn in there I'd say that was the dairy.

 

Question; At what point does a larder become a pantry?

[Simond]

Probably at roughly the same point that a "walk-in wardrobe" becomes a "dressing room".

 

And that depends on whether it's written in an estate agent's brochure or an historical document!

 

Best

Simon

[BG John]

I wonder if the little room on the left is a larder:

DSCF9012.JPG

 

With that butter churn in there I'd say that was the dairy.

 

Question; At what point does a larder become a pantry?

I'll have to go back and find out some time!

 

The walk in cupboard under the stairs where the food was kept in the house I grew up in in Berkshire was called the pantry, even though as I grew up it was quite difficult to move around in it without knocking things off the shelves! The dictionary definitions of larder and pantry are pretty similar, and Google translates both larder and pantry to pantri in Welsh.

[mike morley]

The walk-in cupboard under the stairs where the food was kept in the house I grew up in in Middlesex was called the larder.

 

I'd suggest it was a regional thing, if it wasn't for the fact that most people would regard Berkshire and Middlesex as both being in the Home Counties!

[BG John]

The walk-in cupboard under the stairs where the food was kept in the house I grew up in in Middlesex was called the larder.

 

I'd suggest it was a regional thing, if it wasn't for the fact that most people would regard Berkshire and Middlesex as both being in the Home Counties!

Maybe it depends on how posh our parents were (or thought they were!), or what generation they came from!

[ChrisN]

Welsh Dressers, I know we have a genuine one down here in west Cornwall, but it will be difficult to photograph it as there's only about 4 feet between the front of it and the wall opposite.

 

Larders, I will ask around, I have a couple of friends in the Village from west Wales, one who lived in a '2 up, 2 down' and the other lived in a 'But & Ben' as the Scottish would call it (2 roomed cottage) when they were a lot younger. 

 

We must have mentioned somewhere on here about the St Fagan's Museum by now. http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/stfagans/

 

Penlan

Thank you, that would be very interesting.  My wife tells me she does not remember a larder in the cottage during the time that she knew it.

Edited March 9, 2016 by ChrisN

[ChrisN]

A quick look through the 200 odd photos I took at St Fagans shows a few potential larders

 

This one is definitely a dairy:

DSCF8909.JPG

 

This looks like a larder:

DSCF8923.JPG

 

I wonder if the little room on the left is a larder:

DSCF9012.JPG

 

Is this cupboard a larder:

DSCF9022.JPG

 

John,

Thank you.  Looking at the Welsh Country Houses book there is one that appears to have two recesses in the chimney breast.  I would be surprised if it was more than just a cupboard space but there was a fair amount of brick between it and the fireplace.  I am not sure if it was on an outside wall, I will check.  The larders I have known have been on outside walls ro keep them cool, which they were even in summer.  The ones above look very interesting.

[Simond]

I grew up in a 20's semi in Birkenhead. We had an under-stairs walk-in cupboard, and I have a vague recollection that it might have been a larder when we moved in, but I was 5 so memory likely to be uncertain. It was used as a cloakroom throughout my childhood. My parents did quite a rebuild, knocking the "back kitchen" and "morning room" into one, larger room, in which we cooked, and ate (except when the dining room was used, either for guests or Sunday dinner), and the larder might well have disappeared in the rebuild. There was a separate wash-house outside - this was quite large, maybe 3 X 2 metres, and was backed on by an outside loo, and a coal-hole, all in a very solid, substantial, well built, gable roofed, brick building. It really was built like a brick "outhouse".

 

The family next door had their wash-room & loo built into an extension of the house - I well remember the red quarry tiled floor. They did not do any rebuilding, and I believe they had a larder as part of the extension. Again vague memories, but I don't recall seeing a fridge in their kitchen. I do remember the open fire in the morning room - I spent many hours there as the lady "minded" me after school til my mum finished work - and I guess that the fire had a "back boiler" to give them hot water. We had a Rayburn stove.

 

Turning back to the photos, I'm sure that the larder would not be next to a chimney breast - it simply wouldn't be cool enough. If possible, it would be built into the north side of the house, and as far as possible from the fireplace, but I guess the detail design depended on the site.

 

Best

Simon

[ChrisN]

Afternoon Chris,

You probably know that I've been stuck in hospital for some time, and it's unlikely that I'll be able to catch up now, but I've put a post on Early Risers which you could glance at if you care to see what is happening and save me writing it out again! I'm looking forward to the next planning stages, and it really is good to be back!

Kind regards,

Jock.

 

Jock,

Glad to see that you are back.  Hope the treatment went well with not too many side effects.

[Sasquatch]

We had a larder Chris, in our 1950s modern (back then) post war suburban terrace on the outskirts of Brighton.

Believe it or not our new home (circ. 1930s) here in Oregon has one. Canning, pickling and the making of preserves is popular an annual event!    

We like the old fashioned stuff and I built Mrs. S. a Welsh dresser which takes pride of place albeit in distressed red paint finish in our main room!

 

Interesting stuff on here as usual.

 

Regards Shaun. 

[ChrisN]

John, Mike, Simon,

My understanding of a larder is a walk in cupboard that has some sort of cooling properties, i.e., is on an outside wall, and has a large stone shelf in it.  My understanding of a pantry is of a room for a similar purpose.  It is surprising how cold a room can get in winter if it has no heating in and the door is shut, if it has brick on at least two sides.

 

Berkshire and Middlesex.  I think these two places are very different now, and were when I was growing up in the 50s, but how different they were 100, 150 years ago I am not sure.  Would there be a different usage of words between the town parts of a county and the country parts?

[Jock67B]

Good morning Chris,

Having glanced at the thread before going to sleep last night, I dreamt of Mousehole's finest, Penlan's words. When I took a job back in Scotland as the sixties became the seventies, I had to find accommodation near Edinburgh for my then fiancée and myself (I had landed a well paid task, opening up the North of England, Ireland and all of Scotland to the Yamaha motorcycle franchise, as only Honda had representation in those parts of the U.K.at that time). We found a 'But and Ben' in the village of Cockburnspath, near Dunbar some 28 miles South of Edinburgh, and it was one of several farm cottages serving a farm on the long disappeared Usher Brewers estate. A restricted covenant meant they would only accept a peppercorn rent, and there were lots of restrictive rules attached to the tenancy. It was next to the main A1 and the ECML, so well placed.

At some point, the cottages had been rewired and the one lower half had become a kitchen, with a bathroom behind instead of the largest of the two downstairs rooms.

In a corner was a sizeable room that could be described as a larder, off the kitchen. The cottage was from around the 1870s originally and all the science of food preservation and storage was left as it had been back in the 19th century. Oddly, when we moved to Cornwall, the same methods were in use in several cottages there, and I'm certain our Celtic friends in Wales would have used similar methods! Below a small paned window, several panels of which were made of a kind of zinc coated metal mesh, and the deep and thick slab of granite that made up the windowsill, was very wide, and cold to the touch. A clever cooling device was in use, which was a fair sized container, made in this case of earthenware (I recall my grandmother having a similar set up in the kitchen of her Georgian house in Hurlford, Ayrshire but with a sort of galvanised metal tin) the size of a large roasting tin. Two thick slabs of slate were placed in the container, raised a little to leave space below for cold water, and perishable items like milk and other such products were placed on the slates, the whole topped up with water, and a good thick cloth hung over all, making sure it draped into the water. Then the wonders of evaporation then took over, and the products lasted all day in this primitive sort of fridge!

Excuse me if this is all rubbish from my memories awakened by my dream, but I have made the assumption that you are considering a domestic Welsh interior of some sort in a cottage. If not, simply forget that I prattled on so, and I'll attempt later to read back further and pick up where I missed out. I truly am enjoying your thread to the full, with so many useful tips and inspirational features, thank you for sharing them with us all,

Kind regards,

Jock.

[ChrisN]

I grew up in a 20's semi in Birkenhead. We had an under-stairs walk-in cupboard, and I have a vague recollection that it might have been a larder when we moved in, but I was 5 so memory likely to be uncertain. It was used as a cloakroom throughout my childhood. My parents did quite a rebuild, knocking the "back kitchen" and "morning room" into one, larger room, in which we cooked, and ate (except when the dining room was used, either for guests or Sunday dinner), and the larder might well have disappeared in the rebuild. There was a separate wash-house outside - this was quite large, maybe 3 X 2 metres, and was backed on by an outside loo, and a coal-hole, all in a very solid, substantial, well built, gable roofed, brick building. It really was built like a brick "outhouse".

 

The family next door had their wash-room & loo built into an extension of the house - I well remember the red quarry tiled floor. They did not do any rebuilding, and I believe they had a larder as part of the extension. Again vague memories, but I don't recall seeing a fridge in their kitchen. I do remember the open fire in the morning room - I spent many hours there as the lady "minded" me after school til my mum finished work - and I guess that the fire had a "back boiler" to give them hot water. We had a Rayburn stove.

 

Turning back to the photos, I'm sure that the larder would not be next to a chimney breast - it simply wouldn't be cool enough. If possible, it would be built into the north side of the house, and as far as possible from the fireplace, but I guess the detail design depended on the site.

 

Best

Simon

 

Simon,

This is very interesting.  There must have been in the newer build houses, well 20th century and of reasonable quality some provision for keeping food cool.  Having said that the house where I rented the downstairs in Tottenham was built in 1906 and only had a tiny kitchen and no larder.  I suppose it is possible that the back room, which had an enormous built in Welsh Dresser could have originally been the kitchen.

 

The cottage has an understairs cupboard as you go into the kitchen, which in the original I think was used for brushes, buckets and such like but could be a food cupboard.  The only place for a larder would be in the corner of the kitchen but that is on the same wall as the chimney, so probably there will not be one.

[Donw]

There is a word that has been missing here - Scullery. The first house we bought was an end of terrace in Ironbridge built in the 1850s.  The cooking range was the fire in the main room and the room at the back was described as the scullery. It had a brick bench with tile topping where the bowl was placed to wash food and dishes. Clothes were washed in the outhouse which had a fire under a cast iron bowl. The well was adjacent. Coal was stored in the cupboard under the stairs.

Don

[ChrisN]

We had a larder Chris, in our 1950s modern (back then) post war suburban terrace on the outskirts of Brighton.

Believe it or not our new home (circ. 1930s) here in Oregon has one. Canning, pickling and the making of preserves is popular an annual event!    

We like the old fashioned stuff and I built Mrs. S. a Welsh dresser which takes pride of place albeit in distressed red paint finish in our main room!

 

Interesting stuff on here as usual.

 

Regards Shaun. 

 

Shaun,

Thank you.  It is interesting when these things were built into a home and when they disappeared.  I assume that once fridges became the norm they disappeared.  Having said that my council house where I lived in Tottenham was built in 1953 had one and the council house in Brentwood, built at roughly the same time did not.

 

I assume that being in the middle of nowhere, and far from power in the 30s that a larder would be essential.  I suppose they may have generated their own but a larder would have helped reduce power consumption.

[ChrisN]

Good morning Chris,

Having glanced at the thread before going to sleep last night, I dreamt of Mousehole's finest, Penlan's words. When I took a job back in Scotland as the sixties became the seventies, I had to find accommodation near Edinburgh for my then fiancée and myself (I had landed a well paid task, opening up the North of England, Ireland and all of Scotland to the Yamaha motorcycle franchise, as only Honda had representation in those parts of the U.K.at that time). We found a 'But and Ben' in the village of Cockburnspath, near Dunbar some 28 miles South of Edinburgh, and it was one of several farm cottages serving a farm on the long disappeared Usher Brewers estate. A restricted covenant meant they would only accept a peppercorn rent, and there were lots of restrictive rules attached to the tenancy. It was next to the main A1 and the ECML, so well placed.

At some point, the cottages had been rewired and the one lower half had become a kitchen, with a bathroom behind instead of the largest of the two downstairs rooms.

In a corner was a sizeable room that could be described as a larder, off the kitchen. The cottage was from around the 1870s originally and all the science of food preservation and storage was left as it had been back in the 19th century. Oddly, when we moved to Cornwall, the same methods were in use in several cottages there, and I'm certain our Celtic friends in Wales would have used similar methods! Below a small paned window, several panels of which were made of a kind of zinc coated metal mesh, and the deep and thick slab of granite that made up the windowsill, was very wide, and cold to the touch. A clever cooling device was in use, which was a fair sized container, made in this case of earthenware (I recall my grandmother having a similar set up in the kitchen of her Georgian house in Hurlford, Ayrshire but with a sort of galvanised metal tin) the size of a large roasting tin. Two thick slabs of slate were placed in the container, raised a little to leave space below for cold water, and perishable items like milk and other such products were placed on the slates, the whole topped up with water, and a good thick cloth hung over all, making sure it draped into the water. Then the wonders of evaporation then took over, and the products lasted all day in this primitive sort of fridge!

Excuse me if this is all rubbish from my memories awakened by my dream, but I have made the assumption that you are considering a domestic Welsh interior of some sort in a cottage. If not, simply forget that I prattled on so, and I'll attempt later to read back further and pick up where I missed out. I truly am enjoying your thread to the full, with so many useful tips and inspirational features, thank you for sharing them with us all,

Kind regards,

Jock.

 

Jock,

Thank you for posting this.  This is very interesting, although I am not sure that I can reproduce an earthenware bowl with towels over it. 

[ChrisN]

There is a word that has been missing here - Scullery. The first house we bought was an end of terrace in Ironbridge built in the 1850s.  The cooking range was the fire in the main room and the room at the back was described as the scullery. It had a brick bench with tile topping where the bowl was placed to wash food and dishes. Clothes were washed in the outhouse which had a fire under a cast iron bowl. The well was adjacent. Coal was stored in the cupboard under the stairs.

Don

 

Don,

Scullery, now that is a word to conjure with.  My impression of a scullery is somewhere where things get washed.  Interesting that yours had a brick bench as that could have been used to keep food cool.  I am surprised that the coal was not stored outside.

[Simond]

Don

 

I think "scullery" is pretty much a synonym for "back kitchen"

 

Best

Simon

[Donw]

Don

 

I think "scullery" is pretty much a synonym for "back kitchen"

 

Best

Simon

 

I think a scullery would not contain any cooking facilities. In small cottages the range would be in the main room, only one fire you see. In a posh house the kitchen proper would have its own range but there might be a small annexe used for washing and preparing food which would also be a scullery. Of course later people would have placed a gas or electric cooker in the scullery turning it into a small kitchen.

Don