No 208. The Crofter's Box Bed.

No 208. The Crofter’s Box Bed.

The Crofter’s Box Bed is well known. Even further back is the Neuk Bed, of which I have a photo of one which is in Kirkbister Farm Museum in Orkney. Wonderfully cosy and neat, made with two tall flagstones either side of the opening, two more at either end. Six feet by three at best. Even further back in History was a lean-to bed built outside the stone wall of the house but opening directly into the kitchen of the house. Though built outside the main house wall, it was cosy enough and did not take up any space in the small kitchen. Thick stone and clay walls, sloping roof of flagstone and a thick layer of grassy or heathery turf on top. Grass and heather underneath for a mattress!!!
Well insulated. Nearest thing to Skara Brae which could well have been the original model for them!!! One was still in a house I visited in my very earliest days, though rare, but it was not used any more as a bed, rather as a store for bits and bobs.

The box bed was more common. Opening into the kitchen, warm, often with doors or a curtain. It must have been quite stuffy but I never slept in one so cannot verify that. During the day the bed was usually closed off from the kitchen by the doors where they had them. Whether they closed the doors at night I do not know, I should think not.
They could have been used for “Bundling”, an ancient Orkney custom where the visiting swain and his girl friend could keep warm and “hae a cuddle”. I was told they had to have a folded blanket between them. “No cheating mind, mithers watching” Or Granny!!! Maybe they closed the doors then!!!

Space was at a premium at any time in an old crofter’s house, so well made box beds would sometimes sit side to side making a partition - one opening into the kitchen, one the opposite way into the back room. I have seen two box beds sit side by side both opening into the kitchen. They were not any too large.
Where space was at a premium box beds had room on top for storage, room underneath for more. The chamber pot cum “chanty” would have had pride of place yesterday!!! Now these are at a premium as collectors’ pieces or as flower pots for the annual SWRI Flower Show.

A good reason for shutting off the bed in the kitchen was to stop the hens from nesting or roosting in it during the day. Hens in the kitchen was one of our boyhood things, but not in our house!!! They were not allowed into the crofter’s best room behind the kitchen, the parlour. I was in one crofter’s house in Stronsay, no kidding, where the guid wife took her secky apron and wiped the hen**** off the kitchen table before sitting us down for a cup of strong sweet tea. We lived then closer to nature than now. Organic. Free range before its time. Healthy enough too!!

The box bed would have a chaff or a straw mattress, feathers were too expensive for a crofter to use and were in any case a valuable marketable product. Some croft rents long ago, and farms too, were paid in part in feathers.

Edward Pottinger of Hobbister, at his death in April 1642, had in his estate inventory :-

Item four fedder beddis twa bowsters and ten coddies all estimat to £ 36.00.00 (Scots)

Ordinary estates of that far off time made no mention of feather beds, so they were a valued item. “Bowsters” are bolsters now, though not much mentioned today, “coddies” were cushions or pillows.

The box beds would be cleaned out once a year, the blankets washed, the mattress refilled with chaff or straw, heather or dried grass, even bracken, multiple choice.
Again, linen sheets would be for the wealthy. Woollen felted blankets made at home and a knitted patchwork quilt would complete the furnishings of the box bed. Patchwork quilts were made with bits and pieces of dead clothes, sometimes cadged or given from the big hoos. A painstaking lot of work for the crofter’s wife, taking long over the peat fire on a winter’s evening. There were never idle hands in a crofter’s hoos.

There are still some old photos around showing a crofter with his specs balanced on his nose and his cap on his head, reading a copy of the “ORCADIAN” local paper by the light of a paraffin oil lamp, sitting in an Orkney Chair beside the peat fire, the box bed in the background. Meantime his wife would be knitting, sewing or ironing. And the hoos cat and the ould dog warming themselves at the fireside.

No 207. The Crofter's Peat Fire. pb 16.03.2012

The Crofter’s Barn.

No 207. The Crofter’s Peat Fire.

Nothing is more emotive in Highland Folklore than the crofter’s peat fire. The long memory of the Highlander will not let it go. Rightly so, but how many today have actually seen one used as the crofters did.

In my early days I remember the peat fire mainly in older croft houses on Rousam Head.
Essentially there was a back in the centre of the kitchen, a low stone wall or even a heavy flagstone. The peat fire would lie against it and many a fire had not been out for 100 years. Some regarded it as unlucky if a fire ever went out, and a large dampish peat called a boorag or just a faill peat would be laid on top at night, cover everything over with ashes to keep the fire in. It sweed till morning, and then a quick puff with a bellows would spring it to life. The kitchen with a peat fire like that never really went cold.

Admittedly there were not so many houses to which that applied, most had long been improved or rebuilt with modern fire places, iron Modern Mistress stoves and proper chimneys.

Above the fire but slightly offset was a hole in the thatched roof with a wooden trap door which could be opened or closed by an attached long adjustable pole from the floor. The pole could be set at differing positions on the floor to dictate how open the lum would be. The offset prevented sooty raindrops or hailstones from falling into the soup. It could also be closed if the wind was from the wrong eart. Most of the peat reek escaped through it but, especially on a muggy day, heavy peat smoke could hang long in the rafters, reluctant to go outside.

In the roof there was often a small square cut in the shed cover of the roof with a pane of glass cemented in place. Watertight too.

Either side of the peat fire were small stone walls on which to handily set kettles or pots, often near enough the fire to keep warm. Or hot.
There would be a swee, a movable horizontal bar which could be swung over the fire or set clear to one side. From the swee-bar hung a chain or two with adjustable links, or a couple of iron hooks at different levels to hold a pot or a kettle.

There would be a rectangular trivet, a frame of bars on short legs that could be set to or on the fire or otherwise. Again, cooking could be controlled by distance or height.

There was usually a pair of free-standing racks at the side to set in front of the fire to hold a rotable spit between them for a fat hen for roasting, or any other piece of meat such as a leg of mutton. Underneath would be a pan to catch any fat, well named a dripping pan. Nothing was allowed to go to waste on a croft. Do not forget that a good fat hen used to mean just that in days gone by, very tasty, unlike todays hygenic rubbish,. or a really fat shoulder of mutton off an old ewe, full of lovely sweet grease!!

There might not be a clock to watch but the crofters’ wives had built in timers, accurate to the second.

There was a griddle or brander, bars of iron in a frame with a long handle, see photograph. Brandered fresh herring was a luxury, filleted and split and with a knob of farm-house butter on top. Or salt herring long soaked in water to get most of the salt out. The griddle could be set at differing levels and came close to just toasting the herring. Eat it with your fingers as it came off the fire, scrumptious. Or any other fish that came handily out of the sea on an evening jaunt.

The small side walls to the peat fire allowed a couple of bars of iron to be set across above the fire, and a pot could be balanced on them. Some branders were made with short legs and could be set directly on the fire. A crofter’s wife was a magician with a peat fire, build it up or let it burn low to suit her cooking.

Then the griddle, or girdle, it matters not how you spell it. Mine is an heirloom from long ago, still usable, blacksmith made by Davie Lennie in Stronsay. It had a hinged drop handle, good for storage. The girdle was a most important device for baking. Get a good fire going, peat coals burning red and little smoke. On top of that set or hang the girdle and you were ready for oat cakes. Or bere bannocks. A bit of mutton fat wrapped in a small bit of cloth - it gave a better and safer grip - was used to grease the girdle and we were off.

There were other tricks of a peat fire. One was ironing. Two iron slabs were alternatively put in the fire, then fitted into the smoothing iron and a starched shirt ready for the Sabbath was magically produced. A good short handled tongs was needed for the hot slabs.

And the kettle, always sitting near to the boil at the side or the back of the fire. Any visitor and a pot of good tea would be produced quicker than any modern electric kettle.

In some ways we have not really moved all that far on!!