Breamore House, ghosties & Museum of Rural Life (I)

(Click on photos to enlarge)

I'm afraid I was a bit naughty - photos weren't allowed to be taken in the house, but as there were no paintings to damage by flash down in the kitchen, I waited until the Guide had left the room and took a sneaky one! The barrel on wheels held beer, for the servants, and was filled twice a day. It says "Rest and be merry" around the middle!




Breamore House is an absolute delight and stands on a little rise of land, overlooking a beautiful Hampshire valley (that of the River Avon), midway between Salisbury and Fordingbridge. It was built by the Dodington family and completed in 1583, five years before the Spanish Armada. It is built in the shape of an E, to honour Queen Elizabeth I. It belongs to the descendants of Sir Edward Hulse, who was a Physician at the Courts of Queen Anne, George I and II. Apparently it was the film set for "Children of the New Forest."

There is supposed to be a ghost. Well, we never actually saw one, but good grief, the atmosphere in the first Elizabethan bedroom we were shown round was truly unwelcoming and I had to leave as I had an instant tension headache (which didn't shift for a couple of hours after that). Then in the next bedroom, the supposedly haunted one, I felt a distinct chill in one corner of the room and was more than a little perturbed when it grew icier and then followed me! Eeek! If that was the ghost, then I noticed it (and so did Tricia).

Somewhere on the estate is the Medieval Mismaze, which we tried riding to once when I was living in the Salisbury area, but we never did find it! It is cut into the turf and monks used to do penance by negotiating it on their knees.

The Museum of Rural Life has been greatly extended over the years, and Tricia and I spent some 2 hours exploring it. Within the large barns are reconstructions of an old saddler's shop, a general store, a dairy, a blacksmith's forge, a cartwright's, a cobbler's shed, a baker's, a laundry, an old garage, plus big displays of old farm machinery and tractors.

Here are photos from just one exhibit, which was the estate worker's cottage. I am old enough to remember most of the things inside it! I think this was my FAVOURITE part. This would have been called the scullery - we had a scullery at home when I was growing up - mum never called it the kitchen. Behind the mangle is the corner where the "copper" lived, which was set in brick to retain the heat I believe, and a small fire was lit beneath the boiler. It was heated to boiling and the whites washed first, descending through the washing in order of heat-tolerence, down to woollies last.

The hand punp (cold water only) reminds me of the scullery in my ex-husband's great-aunty's cottage in Dorset. I like the enamel saucepan stack but I'm not sure if they were stacked that way for cooking on one ring? Quite possibly. I hadn't come across these before, although I used to have a saucepan which was in three triangular sections so you could cook different vegetables in each.

A harmonium in one corner of the main room, and a hoop on the other side of the door by the trombone. I think they had a little metal piece which was attached and used to "bowl" it along the road.

Note the little fronting of curtain material over the fireplace mantleshelf, and the farm worker's gun (doubtless for rabbits). Oil lamps were used in rural areas until the introduction of electricity. Here in our part of Wales, that was as late as the 1950s.

A neat little dresser with some blue and white china, and the baby in the pram in the corner. It was very quiet when we were there!


An old sewing machine - essential when mother had to make all the clothes,curtains and repair and alter everything too.

I believe this holds the vinegar mother. The "bulb" on the top is to allow the gases which form to expand and then evaporate. Of course, I could be completely and utterly wrong - if I am, please let me know!!! I must go consult Dorothy Hartley's "Food in England" again . . .


A splendid much-loved Teddy Edward was sat up at table. Isn't he gorgeous?