Glove Stretchers (2)

Yesterday we looked at a metal pair of glove stretchers. Today we step back in time a few years and possibly down market in money terms, and look at a wooden pair of stretchers. This tool had just ...

A digging plate

Many spades have a kind of lip on the top of the blade so that when pressure is applied ordinary footwear is adequate to protect the digger from pain. Some spades, though, have quite a sharp top to t...

A lily pot

We think of Edward Box as being the man who had the brick works in Market Lavington for most of the second half of the 19th century. And that is true, but of course, it was actually the brick, tile an...

A Burgess Photo

This is one of those photos where we’d love to identify the person photographed. This is CDV sizes (carte de visite) and we think it is late 19th century. A rather dapper young man has had his li...

Baby’s Friend

Baby’s Friend? That’s an interesting title and name for an object which may have been responsible for illness amongst babies. It was the trade name of a baby’s drinking bottle and we have one o...

A Brick from Devizes

Market Lavington had its own brickworks but that didn’t mean bricks weren’t imported from elsewhere. At the museum we have several bricks made outside the parish. This one is stamped with the name...

A cornice mould

It seems to be the lot of a curator to have to know everything. We do our best at Market Lavington Museum, but nobody can begin to know everything. And when it comes to tools that are specialities in ...

A paraffin lamp

These days we really struggle without electricity. On those occasions, which really are quite rare, when we have power cuts, life rapidly turns into a misery and a cause for panic. Our heating fails b...

A Writing Case

In a museum some items are special for what they are and some for who used them. Some, of course, are both and perhaps this is one of them although as an object it is fairly ordinary and a bit battere...

A Milking Stool

Market Lavington has areas that are as different as chalk and cheese. In fact that phrase could have been written with Market Lavington in mind, for we have our chalk lands of Salisbury Plain and the ...