Now, I am constantly amazed at how so many everyday objects from the past survive.
They may never be used, pose a mystery to some people, and I suspect are endanger of being lost or destroyed, but they hang on as a reminder of how we once lived.
And so today I am sharing Jaime’s copper, which until recently sat in her cellar in Reynard Road.
Once they were a common feature, and I have written about them on occasion.**
They would often be built with the house and were a distinct improvement on how clothes had been washed before the 19th century.
Before the widespread use of hot water and soap, the traditional way of washing clothes was by using cold water and homemade alkalis to dissolve the grease. For centuries wood ash was the most common material for dissolving grease. The real work came after soaking the clothes in the solution of water and wood ash and involved forcing water through the fibres using a wooden bat.
At its simplest this was just a matter of hitting the clothes with the bat before wringing out the water using a wringing post set in the ground. The clothes were wrapped around the post and by degree the clothes were wrung dry.***
But the copper offered up a real advance, in that the washing could be done in doors, and using hot water and commercially produced soap. That said, heating the water required coal which added to the weekly household bills.
And because many were sited in the cellar there was the added chore of constantly going up and down a flight of stairs with wet washing , as well as filling and emptying the water from the copper.
There will be a few still tucked away in Chorlton cellars, but perhaps not still in as good condition as is the fireplace beside it.
And one of those nice contrasting touches, beside both these relics of how we used to live is the modern boiler.
Sadly the cooper proved too far gone to be saved, but Jaime commented "wish I had taken more photos for you.
We found the old drying rack down there to. Which I presume would of been in the kitchen.
There was an old copper “plunger” which I think was used to stir the washing. Love reading your posts Andrew , so happy I can help out".
Now I am fascinated by the copper plunger or posses, but I think the drying rack would have originally been in the cellar, and the clothes left to dry in front of the open fire.
That said we had a version of the drying rack above the sink in the kitchen which in later life always struck me as odd given the smells that permeated the place during cooking.
I had hoped that the plunger might have added one last twist to the story, because it does carry and name, which if it had been that of the manufacturers could have offered up a search for a catalogue and even the location of a show room.
But no, the writing turned out to be the name of the product with it serial number.
So while I will still go looking for the manufacturer of "The Conqueror", number, "671873 or a 8", I don't expect I will be succesful.
Leaving me just to thank Jaime and record that the plunger was not thrown away or sold, but is still with the house, where it belongs, but now has been pressed into a new use as a light.
Location; Chorlton
Pictures; the copper, 2021, from the collection of Jaime Crockcroft-Bailey
* "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy". Hamlet Act 1, Scene 5, lines 159–167
**One hundred years of one house in Chorlton part 110 ......... washing day with Mr. Baxendale’s amazing labour saving device, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2019/07/one-hundred-years-of-one-house-in.html
***The Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson, 2012
I've always thought those plungers were called posses.
ReplyDeleteYes I only came across that word an hour ago.
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