Getting your ducks lined up in a row

Pan recently did a delightful post about a Barrett's Novelty box she acquired, with a porthole mirror. She also has other items in this set, and wondered if anyone had other items. Her earlier post about her Barretts Pop-Up Electric Toaster inspired me to photograph my boxed sets of Barretts Novelties when I visited my mother in July, so here they finally are!

Mine came via America, where they were sold at Shackman's in New York:


Inside are the original Barretts boxes:


The boxes are illustrated and labelled on all sides:




Don't you love the logo? A beefeater standing at arms inside the B! The company which made them is A. Barrett & Sons - here they use the rather grand name of The Barretts of Sonderburg Street (their premises until 1970).

A. Barrett had been making metal dolls house accessories since 1920, in partnership with F.G. Taylor, as Taylor & Barrett. After World War II, both men set up independent companies with their sons, and A. Barrett & Sons produced dolls house pieces from the early 1950s until 1983, with metal pieces gradually replaced by plastic. If you want to know more about Barrett and/or Taylor, Marion Osborne's book Bartons "Model Homes" has a history of the firms, and lists and photos of the items they produced. The Novelty Box series was sold from about 1959 to 1970, but a lot of the items were available previously (in metal) and later (in plastic).

The contents of these three boxes are in my late Victorian Cupboard House, so it's puzzle find the Barretts:

(There's another Barretts' Novelty set in this photo - can you pick it?
Hint: see the list on the box below! I don't have the box for this one.)

(No, this toast was not made in the pop-up toaster!
Someone must have eaten those slices, and made some more on the range.)

Recently I bought another boxed Barretts' Novelty Set. This box doesn't have a label or a picture showing what it is:



Can you tell?



Yes, it's the ducks!

Here they are in the living room of the Italian Villa style house.


Marion Osborne says that Nos 9 and 10 were added to the list on the box when Barretts re-ordered the boxes for the novelty series, and had to take into consideration future lines. The scales apparently never got past the prototype stage; she believes the Sunbeam Mixer was part of the Kitchen Accessories set, but didn't know what else was. Does anyone have a kitchen set?

I've just won another lot of boxed Barretts Novelty sets, so I'll show them when they arrive. Until then, here's a cat whose kittens have grown up and left home:

50 Followers! Welcome and Thank You All :-)

I was recently tagged on flickr with a request to share 10 random facts about myself. To welcome all my new blog followers, and thank my long-term readers, I thought I'd share the photos and facts here too.

1. I read a lot, and so does my whole family.
2. I have long hair – past my waist. When I was little, I went to a school where hair had to be cut above the collar or tied back. For some reason, I didn’t want to have my hair tied back, so my hair was short until I left that school. It’s been long ever since!
3. I love researching family history – my own, or other people’s.
4. I have never learned to play the piano, although my mother bought a lovely walnut one and played it herself. I did learn the recorder, and played renaissance music informally with a group of friends.
5. I have two cats. One is a tawny black and long-haired, and the other is short-haired and black and white.
   
6. I’m a linguist, which means I studied linguistics. I have also learned several languages, and speak three Australian Aboriginal languages from Arnhem Land (one quite well, the others not so well).
7. I have one sister.
8. My grandparents lived in a house called Unicorn Cottage. In one bedroom, there was a basin in a cupboard. My mother told me she and her brother crawled through the walls under the basin to the attic. I wish I’d done that! I never went in the attic or the cellar.
9. I am not very good at heights (see above).
10. I live in a tropical climate, but I prefer temperate.
    

Thanks for following, commenting, and showing me all your wonderful collections and creations too :-)

Childhood Furniture

In the Cupboard House are all the pieces of dolls house furniture remaining from when my sister and I were children, plus some of my Mum's. Also, the two Erna Meyer dolls which we played with as children live there.

Here they are, the poor things, the two dolls which inspired my love for Erna Meyer dolls:


I believe that my father bought these for us when he made a short trip to France during our stay in England in 1966. As long as I can remember, the little girl has been missing her face (and her hair, though that's not so unusual for Erna Meyer dolls). We must have done something dreadful to her - we were quite small when we were given the dolls. It looks as if her face has been bitten off! We attempted to give her eyes and a mouth with texta, so she would look like a person again. I suspect that there would have been two little girls (and perhaps a father doll?), but when we were properly old enough to play with a dolls house, we just had this mother and daughter pair. They lived with a family of Dol-toi dolls, which we did not keep.

On the same trip to France in 1966 (I believe), my father bought us this set of wooden furniture:


As you can see, this also shows signs of our childhood play. The grandfather clock had a paper face which got torn - the glue on the outside is from a replacement clock face which we stuck on. All the books are made from small blocks of wood, different sizes and thicknesses, and painted in different colours. We wrote 'A Book of Songs' in texta on one of them!
I would love to know who made this furniture - I've never seen it in books or on websites or ebay. I think the wood is pine, and the pieces are joined with tiny nails.

Here is our kitchen furniture:


The pale blue pieces are Twigg, and the green dresser is Pit-a-Pat. I think most likely the Twigg pieces were also bought while we were in England in 1966 - or sent by our grandparents, though I don't remember receiving them as a gift. The green dresser was Mum's when she was a child in the 1930s. I'm sure we had the second door - maybe we still do, somewhere, but I haven't seen it for years!
On the table are three little cups which we made from from acorn caps and buttons. You can also see the stains of playdough food inside the dressers:


I love the boxes in the Pit-a-Pat dresser: tea, coffee, rice, raisins and sago! Sago pudding, anyone?
I know that I used to know what the extra piece of wood is, but I have not remembered for a very long time!


I think it is a cover or lid for something - a Twigg piece, perhpas? It's painted a very pale pink on top, and is bare wood underneath. If anyone recognises it, please let me know!

The dolls house which housed this furniture was quite simple. We sold it when my sister and I were about 10 and 12, I think. I remember it being white, two storey, and open at the front - so quite a plain structure, I think. As well as the furniture here, we had a Petite Princess fireplace and dining table. I don't remember the beds or bathroom at all!

The Pit-a-Pat kitchen dresser which was our Mum's was passed on to us to play with. In the cupboard house there is also a lounge suite which was Mum's, which my grandmother kept - it came to me with the three antique dolls houses which my grandmother gave us. (I doubt it would have survived us playing with it as children!)


This is matchbox furniture, made by my mother, her brother and their governess in the 1930s or early 1940s. The fabric is quite faded and fragile, but it suits the drawing room of the cupboard house very well.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas to all my blogging friends and readers!


In the Cupboard House, the whole family has gathered in the drawing room to decorate the tree. Richard and Allan somehow managed to carry it up the stairs and through the door. Jenny is supervising Polly and Lois as they add some decorations, while Grandma Eleanor surveys the tree through her lorgnette and gives directions. Belinda is so excited she is standing on the sofa behind Grandpa Bernie so she can see! Already there are some parcels under the tree - what can they be? and who are they for?


The decorations are stored away in a box during the year, and Susannah is looking through the collection with John to find the old favourites. (David is very patiently waiting his turn - or is he perhaps getting a bit old to be excited by Christmas decorations?)
There's a gold star to go on the top - Richard or Allan will put it in place when the rest of the decorations are done.
Now the tree is up, and the visiting uncles and cousins have arrived - and there are only two more sleeps until Christmas Day!


I wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas and a relaxing Boxing Day.

Victorian Cupboard House "Hartsridge" ca 1900

This is the other house my grandmother bought for me, after our visit to her in 1972/73. From the outside, it looks just like a cupboard -

Inside, it is a dolls' house with four rooms and a staircase in the middle. The top (viewer's) left is the drawing room, then the landing, and the bedroom on the right. Downstairs is the dining room on the left, the hall and staircase, and the kitchen on the right.

This house, amazingly, has a full provenance. My grandmother bought it from Miss Nancy Bettesworth, who bought it from Mrs Bernard Fox, who bought it from Mrs Searle, who bought it from Miss Avice Hoare, sister of the original owners, Eleanor and Penelope Hoare. Miss Bettesworth wrote to Miss Hoare about the dolls house, and received a great deal of information from her.

The cupboard is mid-Victorian, perhaps ca 1860s. Avice Hoare wrote, on Nov 8th, 1969:

"It was converted into a doll's house by my Father, who married in 1895 + lived at Hartsridge, Godstone, for my sisters Eleanor + Penelope, born in 1897 + 98 - I can't say when it was converted but I should think it was begun fairly soon. .... my father would no doubt have collected from home or bought an old cupboard to convert."

Eleanor, Penelope and Avice Hoare's father was Henry Gerard 'Philip' Hoare, a banker. Miniatures of Philip and of his wife Margaret hang in the dining room of the house:


and photos of the two little girls hang in the drawing room - here's one of them:


You can hardly see them for the frills!

The house has original floor and wall coverings, and the fireplaces are original too. One is in the drawing room:


Avice Hoare wrote: "I should think the carpets ... were home-made from our Grandfather's waistcoats". On the wall above the window is the other photograph of the two little girls - taken outside their house, Hartsridge in Godstone, Surrey, in England.
There is no original furniture, apart from the fireplaces - "I am afraid that unlimited playing rather disposed of the furniture."

My grandmother began furnishing this house with Victorian or Edwardian pieces appropriate to its age. Some of the pieces were rather large in scale, so I haven't kept all of them in the house - instead, I've furnished it as a family house, with dolls house furniture from my own and my mother's childhood.
In the drawing room, the lounge suite was made from matchboxes by my mother ca 1930s; the doll with her back to the camera was bought for me and my sister by my father (in France, I believe) in 1966, as was the bookcase and wooden books. I haven't identified the maker of the bookcase (and the grandfather clock, rocking chair & kitchen table, also in this house), but when I bought Zillner & Cooper's 'Antique and Collectible Dollhouses', I recognised our dolls on page 263 - they were made by Erna Meyer. I've bought a lot Erna Meyer dolls since, and several inhabit, or visit, this house, which is owned by the elderly lady in black in this room.


Here's an earlier photo, when more of the family were visiting, and before I had framed and hung the Hartsridge photo:

On the landing, some boys are playing with toy trucks. The rug and the curtain both came with the house, though I don't know whether they are original, or made by Mrs Fox. I have just added the exquisite embroideries, believed to be early or mid-19th century, which I bought on UK ebay - the stitches are so tiny, I don't know how the embroiderer managed without going blind. The tiny photographs by the doorway are original, I believe - I think they may have come from a tiny concertina postcard charm. They show images of Hampton Court Palace, Richmond, etc, which no doubt the Hoare children knew.


Next door, in the bedroom, two little girls are playing with dolls. The one with her back to the camera is the second doll saved from our childhood - she suffered a terrible accident to her face (I have no memory of it, but it looks as if someone bit it off), so prefers to keep it private. (She also has no hair, a frequent problem with vintage Erna Meyer dolls.) The curtain is original - when I first received this house, I planned to replace it, as it's torn, but I'm so glad I never got round to it. My grandmother bought the beautiful brass beds - they even have springs! The lovely washstand is a new acquisition, from http://www.ktminiatures.com/index.html.


Below the bedroom is the kitchen, where two dolls are preparing food. The flooring is original; the clock, stuck on the wall, and the little check curtain were in the house when my grandmother bought it. She put the kitchen range in - it should really have a wooden surround, and is missing its little tap for the hot water. (Strange that the dolls have not felt the need to buy a newer stove to replace it or provide an alternative for cooking.)
The green Pit-a-Pat dresser was my mother's, and then ours - I'm sure we had the second door somewhere. The light blue Twigg dresser and sink (which you can't really see - it's under the window) - were ours.


The photo of the hall shows the magificent flight of stairs, made by Philip Hoare (his daughter Avice explained "Hunt was the estate carpenter + a fine cabinet maker who worked with my grandparents + no doubt taught my father + his brothers - they were all carpenters"). The carpets here are original, too.

Finally, in the dining room, several men are having drinks. The fireplace was also made by Philip Hoare, and the carpet is original - perhaps another of Grandfather's waistcoats. Someone tried to wash the little runner, and the embroidery thread ran. On each side of the fireplace are the portraits of Philip and Margaret Hoare. As it's summer, the fire is not lit, and a vase of peacock feathers stands in front of the grate. The feathers are real - tiny feathers shed by peacocks at a caravan park I stayed at in Elliott, in the Northern Territory!

This house is pictured in Jean Latham's beautiful book 'Dolls' Houses - a personal choice' (1969), which my grandmother sent me when she bought the house. The picture below (on page 68 in the book; there are more on pages 78-79) shows the bedroom and kitchen as furnished by Mrs Bernard Fox, who owned it at the time. You can see the same clock in the kitchen, and curtains in bedroom and kitchen.


In her letter to Miss Bettesworth, Avice Hoare mentioned that "when I come to think of it, there are quite a number of doll's houses in the family, so I have made you a "pedigree" of them." One was, in 1969, shown on "Garden Open" days at South Park Farm, Bletchingley. I am hoping to trace the whereabouts of the other dolls' houses made by this family - I'd love to see how they compare with the one I now own - and it's another chance to use my family history research skills.