Another trivet

Nowadays, many cookers have four burners or hotplates, enabling the cook to have several pans in use at the same time. The kitchen range in Market Lavington Museum (see A permanent display) has just two hotplates. There were no electric kettles in Victorian times, so one side of the range might have been needed for boiling water in a kettle, leaving just one place for a pan. Of course, then as now, there was the possibility of having a steamer resting above the pan, maybe for cooking some vegetables (see A saucepan and steamer) but, even so, cooking surfaces would have been at a premium.

We have already seen A Trivet, which made a safe resting place for a hot pan, if swapping pans around was necessary. Some of these were designed to hook over or be clamped onto the fire bars on a stove. Our other trivet does not appear to have been used in that way and was probably used on a table top or stood on the hearth in front of the stove’s fire.

It is made of cast iron and stands on three legs. Its height can be adjusted by turning a wing nut on the underside.

This trivet is about 17cm long and dates from the late nineteenth century.

Advertisement