# Donkey stone

> For whitening the front step, every Friday.

https://vitrine.themes.dev/collection/donkey-stone/

- Made by: Unknown quarry works, Manchester
- Date: About 1950
- Material: Pressed sandstone, cement and bleach
- Size: 9 by 7 cm
- Cost new: Two for a jam jar, from the rag man
- Came from: Dorothy Merrin’s house, 2009
- On view: The street, on the front step

Every Friday the front steps of Tenter Lane were scrubbed and edged in cream with a donkey stone, a block of pressed stone that left a pale chalky line. A clean step was the street’s way of saying a house was looked after, and a dirty one was talked about.

Rag-and-bone men handed the stones out in exchange for old clothes and jam jars. This one is worn to a curve on one face, which is the shape of a lot of Fridays.