Pitstone Green Museum – Country Kitchen

The kitchen can be considered as the workshop of the cottage or farmhouse. This room is furnished mostly by items from the house of Garnett Williamson, a builder of Pitstone. He built two houses in Cheddington Road, near the Railway Bridge, and lived in one of them at the turn of the last century. His taste reflects his time, particularly the blue ‘every day’ china on the dresser. The black-leaded range provided the only heating available, as well as the source of hot water, the oven for cooking or baking, a method of heating the flat iron for ironing and warmth for drying or airing the clothes on the clothes horse. Lighting was by oil lamps until electricity arrived on the scene. Gas was not normally available, unless the property was close to a town or large village. Mains water and the mains sewer did not come to Pitstone until 1946 so wells, either inside or just outside houses were common and dirty water flowed into the stream that runs through the centre of the village.