A rusty candle holder

Items given to Market Lavington Museum are supposed to be accompanied by and entry form filled out with details of the object, its donor and permission for it to be accessioned into the museum collection. Occasionally we are faced with an enigma, where such paperwork is not with the objects. Lurking in a box, which may have been in the museum for about twenty years, is a collection of rusty iron items. They have handwritten labels tied around them, some with a lot of detail about the object. We hope to put them on display in 2025.

Here is one of the items that would be recognisable to most of us, even without its label.

It is obviously a candle holder. We have quite a few of these simple but important objects, enabling the provision of some light in homes before the supply of electricity. (See Candle holders, An extending candle holder, Another candlestick and Candlelight.)

This one has a spike on the underside, so it was possibly attached to a bedpost.

We will look at some more of these iron items another time.