Florence Eldin

Florence Eldin, daughter of a butcher who held the shop which is now Dowse the butchers, has been mentioned before on this blog. Click here for that posting. We know that Florence was born about 1893...

Vapo-Cresolene Vaporizer

Let’s begin with an image. This is a Vapo-Cresolene Vaporizer. What a work of elegance! There is a simple paraffin burner designed to heat a substance to produce a vapour. The vapour was said to ...

The Blood Donor

If you are of an age, the title for this posting will bring back memories of Tony Hancock grumbling that the pin prick of blood taken to test for anaemia was not the whole blood donation and that they...

Pink Windows

October is breast cancer awareness month. Our local Post Office in Market Lavington has supported this event and as part of that they have created a pink window display. This is modern stuff – Oc...

A Nit Comb

You never know what will turn up next. Nit combs wouldn’t be everyone’s first choice for a museum item, but they are useful little tools – if you have nits. And of course, they form a small part...

A Victorian Eye Bath

Eyes are obviously important to those of us who are lucky and not blind. It is no surprise that cures and devices for keeping eyes healthy have been around for centuries. This one, which we have in ma...

Dr William Hay Ashford Brown’s brass plaque

The doctor, mentioned in the title was the Market Lavington medical practitioner from the early 1950s. For ten years he lived in the village, at Greystone House in the High Street which had long been...

Fiddington House – 1920s

Fiddington House, was, for more than 100 years, a private home for people with nervous disorders – more usually, albeit incorrectly, called a lunatic asylum. Fiddington always had a very good reputa...

Another Bedpan

Well, why have one bedpan when you can have two? Today’s bedpan is 100 years older (at least) as compared with the one we saw a few days ago. This one dates, we think, from the early years of the n...

A Bedpan

Market Lavington Museum does not have water laid on to it. It never has had this vital fluid, even when it was a lived in cottage, through into the 1950s. It never had a flush toilet and still doesnâ€...