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Abstract
Two detached kitchens recorded in a 1620s English fishing village in Ferryland, Newfoundland provide valuable insight into the perceived necessity and continued use of these ancillary structures well into the seventeenth century. The examples in this article are based on documentary and archaeological evidence and provide detailed information on the construction, size, layout and activities associated with early modern detached kitchens in a British North American context. The Ferryland kitchens were multi-functional spaces operating within disparate social and domestic environments. The results of this research should be considered alongside previous scholarship on detached kitchens, the criteria used to identify them and the likelihood that some also served as accommodation for servants or even family members.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank the field and laboratory staff at the Colony of Avalon Foundation in Ferryland, Newfoundland who have been working alongside archaeology staff at Memorial University for the last three decades. This research would not have been possible without their tireless efforts. The Provincial Archaeology Office, Department of Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts and Recreation have likewise been strong supporters of the Ferryland Archaeology Project and are deserving of recognition. This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Colony of Avalon Foundation, the J. R. Smallwood Foundation and the Institute of Social and Economic Research. The authors also thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and insights. Special thanks to Bryn Tapper for producing in this article.
Notes
1 Martin and Martin, “Detached Kitchens in Eastern Sussex,” 85–91; Meeson, “Detached Kitchens or Service Blocks?,” 73–5; Walker, “Detached Kitchens—A Comment,” 75–7; Smith, “Detached Kitchens or Adjoining Houses?,” 16–19; Martin and Martin, “Detached Kitchens or Adjoining Houses? A Response,” 20–33; Broad, “Making Sense of Detached Kitchens,” 1–7.
2 Gaulton and Miller, “Edward Wynne’s The Brittish India,” 112–14. An obscure treatise written by Edward Wynne in c. 1630–1, The Brittish India is the only contemporary source which provides specific information on Wynne’s possible place of birth, his educational background, his military service and why George Calvert may have chosen him to lead colonisation efforts at Ferryland.
3 Wynne, A Letter to George Calvert, 28 July 1622, in Whitbourne, A Discourse and Discovery, 102–3.
4 Ibid., 103–4.
5 Tuck and Gaulton, “Archaeology at Ferryland 1621–1696,” 203–4; Gaulton and Tuck, “A Terraced Village at Avalon”; Gaulton, “Exploring Devon-Newfoundland Connections,” 159–60. Archaeology has shown that many of the Calvert-era structures at Ferryland were dug into the hillside to make level land upon which to build. This same earth was used to reclaim land to the north on what was originally a gently sloping beach.
6 Calvert, “A Letter to King Charles I”, in Cell, Newfoundland Discovered, 295–6.
7 Pope, Documents Relating to Ferryland, 48–81. Several depositions dating between 1651 and 1652 reference ‘Lord Baltimore’s house’, ‘Lord Baltimore’s chief Mansion House’, the ‘chief Mansion House’, the ‘great Mansion House’ or simply the ‘Mansion House’ which Sir David Kirke and family resided in upon their arrival at Ferryland in 1638.
8 Harper, “In Quest for Lord Baltimore’s House,” 106–14; Barakat, “Some Comments on Lord Baltimore’s House,” 17–27; Tuck, “Archaeology at Ferryland,” 301; Pope, Fish into Wine, 54, 128, 327; Tuck and Gaulton, “Archaeology at Ferryland 1621–1696,” 192. The lack of detailed records after 1623 has led to uncertainty around the first house built at Ferryland in 1621 and the later residence (Mansion House) where Lord Baltimore and family lived in 1628–9. Historians and archaeologists assumed these buildings were one and the same as there was no evidence to state otherwise. Archaeology has since provided definitive proof that the Mansion House was a separate construction and much more substantial than the first house.
9 The specific measures for the first kitchen and first house are primarily based on historical records with limited archaeological evidence; therefore, it cannot be stated with confidence that these are exterior measures. However, for the second kitchen and Mansion House we can determine exterior and interior measures with confidence. This is why exterior measures for the first house and kitchen are not noted.
10 Prowse, A History of Newfoundland, 132. This belief was first conveyed in print in 1895.
11 Tuck and Gaulton, “The Evolution of a Seventeenth-Century Manor,” 47–50. Remnants of the first house and kitchen underlay the stone Mansion House or were incorporated into its construction.
12 Wynne, A Letter to George Calvert, 17 August 1622, in Whitbourne, A Discourse and Discovery, 109.
13 Tuck and Gaulton, “The Evolution of a Seventeenth-Century Manor,” 47–50. For statistics on the positioning of pre-1650 houses in relation to extant streets in South Oxfordshire, see Mileson, “People and Houses in South Oxfordshire,” 17.
14 Gaulton et al., Interim Report—Archaeology at Ferryland 2011, 2–5; Gaulton et al., Interim Report—Archaeology at Ferryland 2012, 1–3; Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 40–5.
15 Tourigny, “What Ladies and Gentlemen Ate for Dinner,” 144–9, 174–86; Tuck and Gaulton, “The Evolution of a Seventeenth-Century Manor,” 50; Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 47–62.
16 Tuck and Gaulton, “The Evolution of a Seventeenth-Century Manor,” 50; Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 46. See Martin and Martin, “Detached Kitchens in Eastern Sussex,” 85–91; Martin, “Forgotten Buildings,” 14–16 for references to detached kitchens in Sussex being cut into a bank/hillside. The detached two-room service block at Ferryland, including the buttery/pantry and kitchen, were built into the hillside where no previous evidence for structural remains/occupation has been found.
17 See Walker, “Detached Kitchens: A Comment,” 75–7; Martin and Martin, “Detached Kitchens or Adjoining Houses? A Response,” 20–33 for criteria used to identify detached kitchens in Essex and East Sussex, respectively.
18 Martin and Martin, “Detached Kitchens or Adjoining Houses? A Response,” 20–1.
19 Detached service block is a term suggested by Meeson, “Detached Kitchens or Service Blocks?,” 74.
20 Smith, “Detached Kitchens or Adjoining Houses?,” 17.
21 Martin and Martin, “Detached Kitchens in Eastern Sussex,” 87; Steane, The Archaeology of Medieval England and Wales, 265 makes a related point that “[…] the kitchen was often placed in an extension of the butteries at right angles to the hall block.”
22 Gaulton et al., Interim Report—Archaeology at Ferryland 2011, 2–3; Tuck and Gaulton, “The Evolution of a Seventeenth-Century Manor,” 50; Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 53.
23 Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 70; Stoddart, “Seventeenth-Century Tin-Glazed Earthenware,” 67, 124, 231–3.
24 Barley, Houses and History, 126–7.
25 Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 46, 50, 58.
26 Crompton, “A Seventeenth-Century Planter’s House,” 254; Nixon, “A Seventeenth-Century House at Ferryland,” 75–6; Gaulton, “The Archaeology of Gentry Life,” 67–8; Hranka, “After the Fire,” 68–71; Tuck and Gaulton, “The Evolution of a Seventeenth-Century Manor,” 45.
27 Gaulton et al., Interim Report—Archaeology at Ferryland 2012, 1; Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 52.
28 Walker, “Detached Kitchens: A Comment,” 75; Martin and Martin, “Detached Kitchens or Adjoining Houses? A Response,” 20; Broad, “Making Sense of Detached Kitchens,” 1.
29 Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 49–50. The amount of window glass recovered is surprising for an early modern kitchen space. As a rough estimate of how much surface area this glass could represent, a random sample of 1,524 pieces of window glass (from a total 4,996 pieces) could be arranged to cover the lids of two banker’s boxes, each measuring 32 cm by 41.5 cm. Based on this estimate, as much as 1.72 m2 of window space may be represented by the glass in the assemblage. Accounting for gaps between the fragments rearranged to arrive at the estimate, as well as the likelihood that some of this glass represents windows that were broken and repaired, the kitchen’s east wall may have featured several small to mid-sized windows.
30 Tuck and Gaulton, “The Evolution of a Seventeenth-Century Manor,” 45–6.
31 Wynne, A Letter to George Calvert, 17 August 1622, in Whitbourne, A Discourse and Discovery, 111.
32 Smith, “Detached Kitchens or Adjoining Houses?,” 17.
33 Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 91, 108.
34 Broad, “Making Sense of Detached Kitchens,” 2; Grenville, Medieval Housing, 119; Linebaugh, “All the Annoyances and Inconveniences,” 15; Pennell, The Birth of the English Kitchen, 46–7; Steane, The Archaeology of Medieval England and Wales, 265;
35 Steane, The Archaeology of Medieval England and Wales, 265.
36 Archer, “Smoky, Noisy, Bloody, Violent, and Smelly,” 73–9, 85–97.
37 Crompton, “A Seventeenth-Century Planter’s House,” 137–44, 181, 233; Nixon, “A Seventeenth-Century House at Ferryland,” 128–41; Gaulton, “The Archaeology of Gentry Life,” 198–223.
38 For additional archaeological evidence for detached kitchens in seventeenth-century colonial North America, see Kelso, Kingsmill Plantations 1619–1800.
39 Smith, Houses of the Welsh Countryside, 26–8. There are differences between English and Welsh house plans from this period. For detailed descriptions, see Beacham, Devon Building; Brunskill, Traditional Farm Buildings of Britain; Peate, The Welsh House; Smith, Houses of the Welsh Countryside; and Wiliam, Traditional Farm Buildings in North-east Wales 1550–1900.
40 See Suggett, “The Unit System Revisited,” 30–1 for similar arguments regarding the developmental cycle of the family.
41 The composition of labour did affect the location of kitchens in European colonies. See Carson and Lounsbury, The Chesapeake House.
42 Walker, “Detached Kitchens: A Comment,” 77.