1676 Inventory of Middleton Hall #14: The Spinning House
Updated: 6 days ago
This post, the fourteenth in the series detailing the rooms and contents of Middleton Hall as described in the 1676 inventory, focuses on one of the domestic production houses: “The Spinning House”. A dedicated spinning house was where raw fibres were spun into yarn. Spinning had been an activity undertaken on the Estate for centuries, but this inventory confirms that the activity was actually undertaken at the Hall itself.
It is uncertain where the Spinning House was located. On the inventory list it was just after the Old Larder and Washhouse and just before the Dairy. This suggests that it may have been situated amongst the main functional service rooms and structures. However, one alternative theory has been that the Spinning House was one of the separate structures to the south of the Tudor Barn.
Although the inventory is a useful illustration of the household at Middleton Hall, because the house was closed, a caveat must be taken into account when considering the items. This is that many items listed in the inventory may not be in their proper place and were simply being stored there instead. Interestingly, the spinning wheels and looms were not being kept in this room but instead appear in Old Larder and the Still Chamber.
The items listed in the inventory of the Spinning House were:
Two soap tubs. Soap tubs were large wooden barrels that were used to brew or store the soap. Traditionally, soap was made from animal fats and wood ash lye. By the 17th century, finer “white” soap had begun to be produced using olive oil. However, white soap in this era was a luxury item in England and would generally only have been used by the wealthy for personal washing. For a spinning house, the traditional animal-fat based “coarse” soap, which was black or speckled, caustic and had an awful smell, would still have been used.
One bath tub. Although recognisable to the modern vocabulary, in the 17th century, bath tubs did not refer to baths for personal hygiene. Instead, they were large, deep wooden vessels that were used for steeping textiles or washing large amounts of laundry.
A pair of cubbards or racks. Cubbards was an alternative spelling of cupboards. Given the alternative description of racks, it means that cupboards were being used in their original meaning and not as an enclosed storage space. The original version of a cupboard was an open wooden frame that held items, such as cups. With the additional context of racks and the name of this room, this implies that these items may have been yarn racks, which were raised frames that were used to hang and air-dry freshly washed wet yarn skeins.
A pair of wooden pails. Today known as buckets.
A great brass pot in a furnace. In the 17th century, a domestic furnace was a brick or stone permanent structure that contained a permanent vessel, normally made of copper or brass, which was built directly into the counter of the structure. Beneath the counter was a dedicated small hearth. It would have required a chimney flue. Furnaces of this type strictly had a utilitarian function and were typically used in bakehouses, washhouses and brewhouses. They were normally situated well away from the living quarters of the house due to their immense heat, steam and fire risk.
Both soap and bath tubs would be expected to be found and used in a spinning house. This was because spinning wool and flax produced large amounts of natural oils. To remove these oils, so that the yarn could be dyed or woven, the yarn had to be washed in a mixture of hot water, soft coarse soap and occasionally stale urine too.
Intriguingly, the description in the text of the brass pot in the furnace is very similar to a description in the 1550 inventory of Middleton Hall. It listed a “great brass boiling pot set fast in stone” in the Kitchen and Larder House. Given that the Spinning House was listed adjacent to the Old Larder in the 1676 inventory, this is even more intriguing and strongly suggests that the 1550 Kitchen and the 1676 Spinning House were the same room. However, that would mean that the Old Kitchen was not the Kitchen in 1550, which is not the prevailing thought. Thus, this indicates how challenging it is to definitely map the functional uses of certain buildings when their functional use was fluid.
In later eras, this type of domestic furnace was referred to as a copper or a washhouse boiler. Interestingly, in the 1924 auction catalogue of Middleton Hall, a boiling house with copper was recorded in the Tudor Barn complex but, due to substantial renovations and technological changes after the 17th century, it cannot be certain that it was the same one.
Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.
Comments