la_samtyr: asian art drawing of sleeping cat (celtic autumn)
[personal profile] la_samtyr
Just had to share -- I love this sort of thing. Lucky lucky people!

http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2011/09/victorian_kitchen_from_the_183.php

Victorian Kitchen from the 1830s Uncovered in U.K.
By Andrew Froug
published: Tue., Sep. 20 2011 @ 7:00AM




The preserved Victorian stove is just one piece in a huge kitchen hidden for decades in the basement.

To all those who own estates in North Wales, try rummaging through your basement. You might find a perfectly intact Victorian kitchen from the 1830's, complete with a cooking range, pots, pans, antique fire extinguishers, a spit for roasting pigs and enough tables and benches to seat a team of twenty servants.

According to the Daily Mail, Archie Graham-Palmer and his wife Philippa discovered the hidden kitchen when looking through the home they had inherited and moved into earlier this year. The basement had become a dumping grounds to store family junk, and these belongings quite literally piled up, blocking the door to this cavernous kitchen.




Daily Mail / Cascade News
Pots, pans and other cooking utensils remained unused for decades.

The home, built around 1800 and bought by Graham-Palmer's forefathers at an auction at the Wynnstay Arms Hotel in 1830, has been passed down generations, and in fact, the kitchen appears to have been used in World War II as a kind of safe haven from air raids. But no one bothered to tell the current owner.

The kitchen comes with a cookbook of recipes that require a team of servants to successfully pull off, leading us to believe that Chef Grant Achatz must be salivating somewhere in Chicago. At his restaurant Next, Achatz and his team spend three months crafting food from a uniquely specific place and time -- turtle consomme and pressed duck for their concept Paris 1906 and tom yum soup and catfish in caramel sauce for Tour of Thailand -- before completely scrapping it for another. Chef, we want to see you do Victorian-era potted meats, whole pig, jellies and some kedgeree. You have the culinary equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls to guide you.





The kitchen was hidden in this estate, surrounded by 50 acres in Wrexham, North Wales.

The pictures bring up a lot of questions: Are those irons on the stove? Were those for clothes or for grilled cheese sandwiches? Is that a hand-cranked spice grinder? Is wood or coal used to heat up those stoves? Now that Graham-Palmer and his wife have decided to preserve it, will someone cook there? Can Achatz? And then can we eat there?

Date: 2011-09-21 06:10 pm (UTC)
ext_93291: (The Storm and the Swan)
From: [identity profile] spiced-wine.livejournal.com
Now that's what I call a kitchen. All they need now is some servants!

Date: 2011-09-21 07:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] samtyr.livejournal.com
Oh yeah, really! I bet that kitchen is larger than my house, lol.

Date: 2011-09-21 08:10 pm (UTC)
ext_93291: (Fëanor & Fingolfin)
From: [identity profile] spiced-wine.livejournal.com
I know it's larger than this one.

Date: 2011-09-21 07:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] perkyandproud.livejournal.com
Okay, that is way cool! And once I see the outside, it makes more sense that they could lose a huge room like that!

Sheesh, the stove is almost as big as my entire kitchen! LOL

Date: 2011-09-22 03:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] samtyr.livejournal.com
Oh yeah, if I had that stove there would be no room for anything else in my kitchen. Well, my cats would find a way to sleep underneath it. :)

Date: 2011-09-21 07:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chaotic-binky.livejournal.com
It looks nice but I suspect maintaining it is a lot of hard work. My neighbour had a range when I was a kid and she was always cleaning and blacking it, plus emptying ashes and having the chimney swept. Her kitchen was always warm in winter.
Edited Date: 2011-09-21 07:55 pm (UTC)

Date: 2011-09-22 03:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] samtyr.livejournal.com
Oh yeah, the maintenance alone would be a full time job. To say nothing of keeping enough wood on hand, lol.

Date: 2011-09-21 09:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] olorime001.livejournal.com
Wrexham? Oh, Chris has been there before. I hope next time he goes there for work he'll take me.

Date: 2011-09-22 03:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] samtyr.livejournal.com
That would be very cool if you could see it in person. I know I'd love to.

Date: 2011-09-21 10:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] engarian.livejournal.com
Isn't that just marvelous! I absolutely love it! Thanks for pointing this out :-)

- Erulisse (one L)

Date: 2011-09-22 03:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] samtyr.livejournal.com
I love this sort of thing -- glad you enjoyed it.

Date: 2011-09-22 03:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aglarien1.livejournal.com
Wow. That's just fascinating.

Date: 2011-09-22 03:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] samtyr.livejournal.com
It really is fascinating. Sure gives us a whole new appreciation for modern technology.

Date: 2011-09-22 08:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] liriel1810.livejournal.com
That is sooooo cool! I've always dreamed of buying a big old house to restore and finding unexpected treasures in the basement or attic. *g*

Date: 2011-09-22 02:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] samtyr.livejournal.com
I love cool stuff like this. I'm glad the new owners are going to preserve it rather than "modernizing" everything.

Date: 2011-09-23 09:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] liriel1810.livejournal.com
Oh me too! It'd be a travesty if they were going to toss everything out and replace it with modern stuff!

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