I know I have mentioned mine and Kate’s Old kitchens project a couple of times so now I have finally taken some photos. The house team has been spilt into four groups for winter, each focusing on a different aspect of preparing for the winter season. The Conservation Assistants, Carol and Megan, are in charge of the Winter Clean. a huge task where every room in the property gets a deep clean and conservation tasks that need doing annually are undertaken.
Ben and Will have been given the Cellars as their area to prepare for the winter offer. Like the kitchens this area was pretty much a blank canvas for them to put their ideas into. They have decided on two themes; the Crimean War in the first area of the cellars, as Sir Percy Herbert fought in the Crimean War as we have several items in the collection that used to belong to him, including his medals and his sword. Their second area is dedicated to a history of brewing beer and ale, in collaboration with Monty’s Brewery, the place that has made our new Powis Pale Ale. This areas would have been used to store the ales that were drunk by the family at the castle. They have done some fab work with lighting in this section, making it really atmospheric!
The huge barrels in the cellars
Emma and Naomi have been tasked with the Ballroom and Clive Museum and have gone with an Indian theme, to tie in with the Clive of India collection. This is why I have been sewing Elephants, for the Christmas tree that will be in the Ballroom. Because the Old Kitchens and the Cellars are closed areas we have been able to get on with installing our winter offers, but Emma and Naomi have not had the chance to do the same.
The Ballroom
And on top of all of these themes will be our Christmas theme, it is going to be really spectacular and I am so excited about it! But more on that in another post.
The we have the Old Kitchens. We have focused on restoring the kitchens to something what they would have looked like when they were in use. After our House Staff Conference at Chirk Castle we have though differently about the interpretation we will be using. We are going to use the objects in the kitchen to tell the story of its use. Placing in utensils that can be handled and will show what happened in the kitchens, what technology and tools they had, and what they cooked. I have also been researching recipes from Menus found in the archives that we know were cooked in these kitchens and served at Powis.
The first physical step we took after the planning was filling the huge wooden dresser that stands in the kitchens with some beautiful Indian Rose design crockery that had been donates to the castle.
The dresser filled with Indian Rose china
Then we went shopping! We searched all the charity shops and antique shops in Welshpool for anything suitable for our kitchens that could also be handled by members of the public. We managed to do really well, with huge thanks to the Antique shop on Boots Street that did us some fantastic deals. All we really want now are some huge copper pan, but copper is so expensive at the moment that will have to wait for another day, or year. Then all our purchases had to be cleaned up, the cooks at Powis would have run a very well oiled ship so we can’t let the side down!
Cleaning pots for use in the kitchens.
The we put our purchases out on display in the Kitchens.
The dresser with some of our bargains on
We had decided we wanted jars filled with different thing that would be used in cooking that have a really strong smell to them, We call these our ‘smell me jars’. They contain a selection of herbs, spices, teas and coffee and the idea is to help engage all the sense in learning about the kitchen.
Our ‘smell me jars’
I was being nosy a found a cupboard so we decided to make good use of it, by filling it with interesting things for people to discover. We put in some more of our shopping finds in the cupboard, as well as some more jars filled with jams and preserves ect.
A fab selection of different bottles and jars
Mmm pickled eggs
Kate found these fantastic little vintage paper groceries bags , in several different designs. We stuffed them with tissue paper and placed the in our little cupboard as well.
Aren’t they lovely!
We have also been dressing the Cook’s sitting room, it went form a bare room to something that is starting to feel really homey. This is the room that will have some different types of interpretation to the traditional flat media. We are going to have picture frames with information about the servants that used to work at Powis, and cushions with facts on them. Again it is still a work in progress but this is where we are at currently.
A taste of comfort
Programs like ‘Downton Abbey’ and documentaries like ‘Servants – The true story of life below stairs’ (both of which I thoroughly recommend watching) have peaked the interest in areas like the kitchens. I also think the life servants lead feels more relateable to most people. We often get asked where the kitchens are when they are not open and people love to look around them. On Monday our State Rooms close and our Old Kitchens open everyday, it is a funny thing, the grandest more sumptuous rooms shut and the rooms that are designed for a practical purpose with no frills. I cannot wait to finish dressing our area and adding the interpretation, and on monday we start decoration for Christmas too. We will be very bust but it is very exciting so worth all the rushing around.
View from my attic 