We lived in Victorian houses as children in the 1950s, and both had built-in ranges which took up an entire wall, so not like an Aga or a modern range, as part of the original construction. The first one (Springwood House, Springwood Terrace, Keighley Road, Hebden Bridge if anyone can date it) had the range in what we called the breakfast room, but oh boy! it was the only warm room in the house when we got up on cold mornings, so we all dressed there. It had a small pantry off to one side, so I am sure this was the original kitchen. The larger room which we used as the kitchen itself had no heating, a stone-flagged floor, and the cooking appliances were all free-standing - I think it was probably what the Victorians would call the scullery, and as there was no basement it would have been where washing was done. The range was coal-fired and we didn't let it go out very often (see above!). We still had gaslight fittings in the living room, but they were disconnected. The second to which we moved in 1961 was a mid-terrace house (Hyde Park, King Cross, Halifax) where the kitchen stuck out from the house block looking like a single storey extension. But as all the houses in the terrace were the same, they must have been designed like that. This kitchen had another full-wall range, also coal fired, and I seem to remember it heated the water too. It made excellent yorkshire puddings. But we pulled it out in the interests of creating more space in the tiny kitchen (we were usually 8 and sometimes 10 people living there), and we then had a Baxi fire in the living room which heated the water too. This definitely had to have the ashes raked out from underneath every morning or there wouldn't be enough draught to keep a blaze going. Always the woman's job! Incidentally this house did have a basement: part was used for coal storage - and the coal was tipped down a chute to it, and then had to be carried up in the scuttle to feed fire or range. The other part we used for washing: we had a circular tub (electrically heated) which did the washing, and a hand-powered mangle which squeezed most of the water out. We then took the washing up the steep stairs and out to the yard where it hung on the line to dry. Unless the weather was too bad, in which case it hung on a creel over our heads in the kitchen. Remember them? Apart from replacing the old circular tub and mangle with a twin-tub sometime in the sixties, this was our routine for Mondays. So I think the answer to your question, Jean, is that probably coal was used for cooking and heating in homes far more than gas was, and from an earlier date, and I'd expect gas to be predominantly for lighting. Does anyone have more knowledge about that? Thank you making me visit these memories! best wishes Maggie -----Original Message----- From: jean and terry <[email protected]> To: [email protected]; [email protected] Sent: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 2:55 Subject: Re: [WRY] Need help with background information I am trying to put all the facts and information I have with my Ellam family history and I am using Publisher to try to make it more interesting to our descendents. I have learned quite a bit about my husband's grandparents from the census and war records and marriage certificates etc so I am trying to record all this and add personal memories. I wrote about how my mother-in-law was born at home (I even know which home thanks to the 1911 census) and I told the story how she was one of a twin which died at birth and she was very tiny and they wrapped her in cotton wool and put her in the Yorkie Range oven. Then I thought that our grandchildren (particularly living in Australia) would have no idea what I was talking about. So I went on the internet using google and discovered that the Yorkshire Range Company is actually making and suppliyng these for homes today (there is a love affair in Britain it seems with things old - we couldn't wait to pull all these things out now it actually adds value to ones house. Anyway I got my pictures and you can have one of these ranges in your home if you wish. I had a friend whose mother made Yorkshire puddings in her fire oven and I loved them although they weren't light and fluffy. It made me think how did our ancestors cook before gas or electricity in the homes, so I tried google again to see when cooking appliances were made available and I found this a bit too hard so I wondered if any of you have explored this and can give me some ideas. I feel that we are the custodians of our culture and need to pass it on. I watch UK TV programmes like "escape to the country", property ladders" etc and it is an education in itself. English people generally don't like bungalows and spend a lot of time worrying about where the bathroom should go i.e. upstairs or down (our first home didn't have indoor toilet let alone a bathroom, we had one tap). Where I live it is rare to find a two story house and even rarer to find a terrace of houses. There are some in the Eastern States but land was just so available that it was easy to build detached one level homes. Our rooms seem larger too when they give dimensions instead of just showing us the wide angle lenses. I've had my geography improved so much watching these programmes now I need to brush up on my history. I know we had ancestors working in the gas industry in the late 1800s but I think it was available in homes much earlier than that. Jean in S. Australia. Some useful websites - FREECEN - http://www.freecen.org.uk/ FREEBMD - http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/ Want to know where a place in Yorkshire is - Try Genuki http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message