In the servants wing of the house, the maid’s room is adjacent to the Cook’s room. It is smaller than the cook’s room and as per the smallest bedroom in the main part of the house does not contain a fireplace. Though, eleven fireplaces in one house is perhaps enough.
Restoration
The window frame is the original one to the house and was repaired the weights in the sash were rehung. and new window furniture added.
The floor was cleaned and linseed oiled.
Renovation
Bedroom door – you’ll notice that in one of the pictures in the slideshow, there is a view of the door. Notice a wood block insert that has not been painted at the time this picture was taken. The reason for this, is that the door has been turned to open to the wall as per the current trend, not into the room as was original. Many people refer to the opening into the room rather than to the wall, as being a modesty opening. that would allow the door to be left ajar without others looking fully into the room or indeed gave a moments grace before someone entered. Whatever the reason, while arranging the rooms, we have gone for this century view, of making the maximum amount of usable space in each room. In the downstairs room, we have left the doors to their original orientation.
Cast iron radiator – The radiator is a cast-iron reproduction radiator painted in gun-metal. The style of radiator was chosen for it simplicity and matches the vicarage style. It is complemented by antique copper fittings. And the even better news is that these radiators retain their heat for a considerable amount of time after being turned off.
Black iron door and window furniture – There were one or two original pieces of window and door furniture remaining in the servants house. These were of iron and painted. This shows the contrast to the main hose where the few original fittings which remained were brass. To standardise across the servant’s house a range of black iron items was selected and fitted.
Door lock – When the house was new, many of the rooms were fitted with rim locks, you can see the marks on the door. Over the history of the house, the decision was taken to move to more modern 3 lever internal lock. This resulted in the doors being chiselled out to accommodate them. Victorian doors are slimmer than their modern counterparts and as a result the doors suffered from this, there is hardly any wood for the handle screws to grip on and the wood begins to splinter. Rather than try to turn the clock back, we opted to replace the upstairs locks with a better quality internal lock and stabilise the doors by having small wooden chamfered panels made for every door in the house. These will allow another two hundred years of use out of these doors and another twenty changes of handles.
Interior design
The dominant colour in this room is shades of brown.
The pictures on the walls are prints of York, with York Minister being the largest. They came from a visit to the city several years ago and were framed in Canterbury. The frame selection was chose to compliment the Ducal pine furniture.
The carved animals on the window sill were bought on the Equator in Kenya in the mid 1980s. They have darkened wonderfully well over the decades.
The curtain pole is off-white with gold-flecks this has been used in the other bedrooms. The finials in this and the cooks room are of a plain bun end, which matches the knob on the newel post on the servants staircase.
The Old Vicarage B&B, Little Ouse 