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The old kitchen was in active use between 1640 and 1938. It is a beautiful room rather than every housewife's dream.
The well is dug straight into the Old Red Sandstone rock on which the Castle is founded and out of which it is constructed. The rock strata dips towards the west, and through it, both summer and winter, the water permeates - keeping the well charged within six feet of spring water.
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The amazing cooking range is 19th century, and the contraption above is the gearing for a spit: a rotator (one of the few English words, Madam, that is a palindrome) was moved by a fan in the flue. In 1760 it was the very latest thing and was, at least in theory, automatic because the hotter the fire became, the quicker the meat turned.
The cabinet is an old ice-box, and there are flat-irons, smoothing-irons, a clothes Peggie, a trivet, a warming-pan, a circular knife-grinder, butter-hands, a Lazy Susan, a pestle and mortar, a bucket - yoke, a butter-churn, a crusie lamp, earthenware jars and other priceless junk, some of it defying identification.
The kitchen table was constructed in the room. All these pots and pans were once regarded fondly: so much so that the last cook to hold supreme sway in this kitchen - when told that she was to be provided with less antiquated equipment - gave in her notice on the spot.
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