Accessories for a Tudor Dolls House Kitchen

A well-equipped Tudor dolls house kitchen

I tended to think that kitchens in Tudor times were pretty basically equipped. But after reading some inventories of the houses of real people of that time I changed my mind. Tudor cooks had lots of utensils to help them make their pottages and coffin pies!
  Many of the items found in a Tudor kitchen were made of wood, clay, pewter  or iron. These can be made in 1:12 scale using wood, or polymer modelling clay or air-drying clay that can then be painted to look like metal or pottery. Patterns for making them can be found in magazines and books devoted to miniatures. You can also buy kitchen accessories from specialist suppliers of dolls house miniatures.
   Here are some ideas for accessories for your Tudor dolls house kitchen:

• buckets made of leather, or wooden staves hooped with iron
• cooking pots and pans made of pottery and metal
• iron fire dogs, roasting spits, griddles and cauldrons. Cauldrons were hung up over the kitchen fire on a hook attached to an arm that could be swung out and back
• forget about forks, the cutlery used was knives, shaped like daggers, and spoons. Much of the food was eaten with the fingers.
• plates, cups and tankards were made of pewter for the wealthy. The poor had cups made of wood or horn. For plates they used 'trenchers' - thick slices of stale bread. In later Tudor times, these were replaced with square wooden platters.
• a wooden salt box hung on the wall
• pottery jugs and platters
• a mortar and pestle
• flagons and barrels for beer and wine ( often kept in another room)
• long-handled perforated spoons and paddles for stirring the meal in the cauldron

And I put one cheeky little accessory in my Tudor dolls house kitchen that you may or may not like to copy - a little grey mouse!