The kitchen
Water jug, blue rim
Filled at the yard tap every morning for fifty years.
- Made by
- Unknown enamel works, probably Wolverhampton
- Date
- About 1925
- Material
- Enamelled steel
- Size
- 24 cm tall
- Cost new
- One and threepence
- Came from
- Dorothy Merrin’s house, 2009
On view The kitchen, on the dresser. Ground floor.
The jug stood on the scullery dresser at 12 Tenter Lane, the house beside the works, from the 1920s until Dorothy Merrin died in 2009. It was filled at the tap in the yard, because the house had no water upstairs until 1961, and nobody saw a reason to stop.
The chips on the lip are where it met the stone sink. Enamel was sold as the thing that would last for ever, and in a way it did: the jug was never mended because it never quite broke.
Where to see it
The kitchen, ground floor.
You’ll find it on the dresser. The kitchen is on the ground floor; the lift is by the front desk.
Open Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00, and until 20:00 on Thursdays.