The History Anorak

The History Anorak
Showing posts with label Burghley House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burghley House. Show all posts

Friday, 19 June 2015

I know my place

Servants' sign
And if I hadn't known it, I'd have soon learned if I worked at Burghley House in Lincolnshire. This sign is prominently displayed on the chimney front in the kitchen.It makes you wonder what some staff had done in the past to make 'his Lordship' feel the need to erect such a notice.

A couple of points of interest in the English. It's to be expected that Lordship should have a capital letter, but why Kitchen?  Clearly this was viewed as an important room.  (Germany still uses capitals on nouns, but other words don't have them here, so that's not the influence.) It's also old enough to have the 'f' in place of an 's' in 'exprefsly'. 

The kitchen at Burghley is a fascinating place with fine examples of 18th and 19th century cookware displayed along its Tudor shelves. There is also a magnificent cast iron roasting range, dated 1840, and made by a London company. It was powered with charcoal and provided heat to a back boiler as well as cooking. It incorporates an elaborate spit mechanism for turning huge joints of meat as they cooked.