The Lobby Gallery
When visiting the House on Crutches Museum the first room you enter is the Lobby. Here you will find a small display on milk production and processing, along with a display devoted to wash days. This room is also home for changing temporary displays or exhibits.
To find out more about some of the objects on display in this room, scroll down the page or click the shortcuts below:
To visit the other galleries click these links:
Architectural Features
This entrance area of the Museum may have been built as part of a newer structure or addition when the jetty was added in the 1600s. To the right of the present entrance is a flagged corrider which contains several large oak supports, traces of an older wall and a painted door frame. This corridor is possibly the remains of an old 'outshot' built to accomodate the original staircase to the upper floor.
Both here and upstairs there is a two step difference in height between each pair of rooms which would seem to suggest that the lobby and the room above it were indeed additions.
The Large fire-place in this room is probably all that remains of an older kitchen and servants hall.
There is a story about this room being used as a cheese store around 1917, by Gaius Smith’s the grocers on the Square. The two young fellows responsible for carrying cheeses from shop to store, decided one bright morning that it would save time and energy if the cheeses were rolled down the cobbles to the store. The inevitable happened! Several cheeses ended up in pieces, several ended up continuing their journey down the hill, and the young fellows ended up sacked! (Janet Preshous: Bishops’ Castle Well Remembered, p,29)
go back to topThe Milk Man
Milk and milk products played an important part in family life .The bottling of milk was not widely adopted until after the First World War, and mechanised dairies were only established in large towns and cities. In country areas and small towns like Bishop’s Castle, milk was brought in a large churn by horse and cart, and measured out from the churns each housewife bringing out her jug to be filled.
There is a good deal of country lore attached to milk production, as certain plants [mint, wild garlic, ivy, acorns] tainted the milk, while other plants were considered more beneficial, but basically the quality of the milk depended on the cow.
go back to topThe Pig Jib or Crack
In the Lobby there sits a long table with handles and small iron wheels. This is a Pig Jib or Pig Crack. This particular example has been adapted by the addition of wheels and suggests that the user needed to move the “crack” from place to place on his own. The crack was used in the meticulous cleaning of the pig carcase. The pig was an important animal in most country households. There were sties in most gardens, including those in towns. Easily fed and managed (they eat anything, live in sties at the bottom of the garden and get fat] pigs supplied the family with meat, bacon and ham, while any surplus product could be sold at market. The crack was also often used as a milking table if the householder was lucky enough to own a goat. The goat was placed and tethered onto the crack so that the animal was at a more convenient height.
go back to topWash day
The ritual of the weekly wash - undertaken by women - was well established in most households by the 1850's. It was hard work, which took up most of the day, traditionally Monday. Cotton and linen fabrics, widely available and popular by the late 1700's/early 1800's because of importation of cheap raw cotton from America, were soaked and boiled in the "copper" heated from below by coal or gas, then rubbed and washed by hand. Woollens (jumpers, cardigans, socks etc., usually all hand knitted) had to be treated with great care to avoid shrinkage.
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