The Batterie De Cuisine / Petworth House
6am, light the fire and make tea for the chef and the head kitchen-maid; next, it’s onto the servants’ breakfasts for 8am; then, it’s yeast buns into the oven for the servants’ afternoon tea. And that’s just the start of the kitchen maid’s day at Petworth House, Sussex …back in 1900. For apart from helping the chef prepare family meals, the afternoons were spent scrubbing the kitchen floors and anything else thrown in her direction – those castellated copper game pie moulds, pots, and bain-marie pans won’t gleam without a daily buffing. Below-stairs hierarchy, with servants waiting upon servants, guaranteed everything was tickety-boo and operating like clockwork by the time it came to delivering grand meals and lavish picnics for those above-stairs.
Petworth House boasts a truly magnificent batterie de cuisine – the complete gamut of tools, pans, bakeware and moulds required for a professional kitchen, and cleaning it all was a full-time job.
Built to last, the one-thousand piece copper batterie de cuisine mainly predates 1872, when a fire destroyed the old kitchens, and all pieces are numbered and initialled with the letters LP or LL standing for Leconfield Petworth or Leconfield London – denoting which residence it was from. Copper was favoured for its malleable and conductive properties, yet lined with tin to prevent the poisoning of all.
On the early nineteenth century painted pine dresser are castellated game pie moulds, bain marie pans, and the footmen’s trays that now hold food cloches.
Get The Look / tap here to view our below-stairs collection of copper moulds, and much more.
Glazing stew pans had recessed lids which would have held hot embers to maintain a good top heat.
Get The Look / tap here to view our below-stairs antique whisks, cake tins and much more.
