Linen

I found some old linen while unpacking yet more boxes.

One tablecloth had this laundry label on it.  It says “Farrer” which was my grandmother’s maiden name.

She was born in 1888 and lived in Wetheral which is a village near Carlisle.  The river Eden flows through it, and the Farrer family lived in Edenside Cottage on its banks.  The photo on the left shows the house in 1880s, and was taken by my Great-grandfather Joseph Spottiswood Farrer who was a professional photographer.  When my grandmother Ethel was a little girl she used to wash her father’s glass photographic plates in the river.

Anyway, the tablecloth probably belonged to her mother rather than her, because she would not have owned tablecloths until she married and had her own household.  It is made of mercerized cotton – very smooth, strong, and with a gentle sheen which was common in fine heirloom linens from the early 20th century.  The damask pattern and hem are too regular to be handmade – so this is probably machine work from the late Victorian or early Edwardian period.

This other tablecloth I found is almost certainly handmade, and probably was made by my Grandmother for her dower chest some time around 1905.

Many years ago, when my grandmother died at the age of 98, my mother opened the bottom drawer of a massive chest of drawers in the bedroom of her house in Blackpool.  Wrapped up in tissue paper where it had been for 80 years were the things to clothe her for her death.  There was a linen shroud, white silk stockings and gloves and two heavy copper pennies to place over her eyes.  These would have been given to her by her mother when she got married.  Apparently my mother put them in the bin – if it had been me I would have seen to it that they were used.

We still have the chest of drawers sitting in our hall.