Rayburn 'Nouvelle'
The Rayburn is the 'hub' of the house, heating radiators, providing hot water, warming the kitchen and, most importantly, cooking dinner. Wine-braised beef shin and baked beans are two favourites regularly cooked in the winter months - baking standards include bread, biscuits and fruit loaf. It is a stove that requires some wrangling, but for those who appreciate its specific quality of heat it is well worth the effort.
The brick chimney in the cookhouse was poorly built and had to be partially dismantled, leaving only the lower half of the chimney-breast intact. The remaining structure was used to create a deep 'warming shelf' behind the Rayburn where butter is softened, bread is proofed and honey is stored.
To the left of the Rayburn an original brick bread oven once operated. Inferior bricks lead to its collapse some decades ago but enough of the lower structure remained for it to be integrated into the new operation: woodbin in front, pumproom behind and hot water cylinder suspended above.
And to the right of the Rayburn the laundry copper once stood. Hot water was piped to it through the chimney-breast from the original wet-back. The copper is now serving as a water butt in the garden, replaced with a laundry tub still receiving hot water from the same source.
