Large stoneware hot water bottle also called a foot warmer. The stoneware hot water bottle was made by Langley Ware of England. Often the stone cap would be replaced with a cork alternative to seal the hot water. If you were very wealthy you might have a silver one, or a richly decorated copper warmer.
Some of the most ornate warming pans have an elaborate pattern of perforations incorporated in the design. But not all warming pans had pierced patterns. This difference would have been crucial for the servant or housewife using the pan. With air holes, the embers would keep smouldering, the heat would last longer, but the bed would probably smell of fumes and there was an increased risk of scorching the sheets.
The smell was not always of wood or coal; in some parts of the UK it was burning peat. In 19th-century England fully enclosed warming pans seem to have been popular: cleaner perhaps, but the heat would have died down more quickly. Some warming-pans with solid lids were used with hot water. Others were completely open like this unlidded warming pan from the French Alps. Warming pans on a handle were designed for moving up and down the bed before someone got into it.
The handle wasn't always lined up to make it easy to hang on the wall. Some warmers, in Italy or southern France , for instance, were more saucepan-shaped. If you didn't want to stand in a cold bedroom moving the warming pan up and down, you might possibly have a bed wagon.
This was a large frame designed to hold a pot of glowing fuel in the centre of the bed. The one in the photograph is shaped like other bed wagons from southern England, but made of oak, rather than the more common ash.
The equivalent in Italy and France looked more like a sledge than a wagon: a sledge carrying a pot of glowing charcoal or wood, sometimes hanging from the top of the frame. This pot could be iron, brass or even earthenware, lidded or unlidded. By William Heath c Lewis Walpole Library. On Monday last the following accident happened at Spalding as an elderly gentleman was going to bed, attended by her servant maid.
Near the top of the stairs her foot slipped, when she fell upon the girl who was so terribly burnt by the coal in the warming pan, that she expired in 24 hours. On Wednesday the 7 th instant a dreadful fire broke out at Capel St. The fire flew so far that it burnt down the house a quarter of a mile away. Courtesy of Skinner, Auctioneers and Appraisers. Clearly both the benefits and worries about the use of coal in such appliances was of concern to people as these adverts show for new and safer types of pan.
It turns out that the infirm used hot-water bottles back in the times of Hippocrates of Kos c. Also in use were such things as stones, bricks, or irons to warm up a bed or a room — after being heated, these could keep a high temperature for a long time.
Flaxseed or flour shortcakes were also widely used for heating purposes. Ancient bed warmers, like the one displayed in the abovementioned museum, were also made from brass or even silver. Handles were metallic or wooden — always with a hook in order to hang warmers on the wall. A long handle was also needed for carrying the warmer from the oven to the bed and moving it under the mattress.
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