Thanks Audrey and Austin for your further comments. Alice's inventory does include three beer barrels so it is possible that these vats and pails were used for brewing. If the word is sybb not jybb then cheese-making is another possibility. I hadn't realised that the art of cheesemaking was so ancient. Debbie

'yrn' of course being 'iron'. I'm wondering whether the line 6 'stil(ring?) iron is some kind of Stilton cheese iron, a hollow device for sampling cores, and also for (I think) putting the blue veins in. John