Blue and White China

First of all, in our photos it looks less than blue. But it is! Honest!

Blue and White Poppy pattern china by T Till and Sons

We are looking at vegetable tureen and a serving plate. There is also a sauce boat.

Matching tureen and lid

This china carries this makers’ mark.

The makers’ mark

These items were made by T Till and Sons and the design was called Poppy. If you want to know more about these Staffordshire potters then visit the website at http://thomastillandsons.webs.com/

Now what makes these items so special to our museum in Market Lavington?

The answer is simple. These items are the remains of a dinner service that belonged to Alf and Louisa Burbidge. Alf and Louisa lived in the cottage which is now our museum so these items are in their very rightful place.

In fact we have quite a full history of these items for when the Burbidges died the crockery went to Mrs Lily Gilbert. Lily was born a Shore and her brother had Married Flo Burbidge, the daughter of Alf and Louisa.

The items were given to the museum by Lily’s daughter, Mrs Clarke in 2001.

After fifty years, the Poppy china had come home. And you can see it now in the kitchen where once it would have been used by Louisa and her family.

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A Bed Rest

There could be all sorts of reasons for wanting a prop to lean a pillow against so that someone in bed can be semi-upright. Bed bound people might have found such a device useful for eating and drinking. Or maybe a person just enjoyed breakfast in bed. We have one of these devices at Market Lavington Museum

A bed rest at Market Lavington Museum

The device operates something like a traditional deck chair. From its flat ansd folded arrangement a triangle can be produced with three different notches rto allow the pillow to be held at different angles.

This bed rest dates from the 1920s. It belonged to the Shore family of Market Place, Market Lavington and thy used it until 1987. Mrs Shore had been, until her marriage in 1940, Miss Flo Burbidge. And she had been born in our museum building back in 1908.

We don’t know all of the history of this bed rest, but it is possible that the Burbidge family had it and passed it on to Flo. We like to think that our bed rest is at home now.