Butter stamp
Category
Historic Services / Food & drink preparation
Date
1700 - 1800
Materials
Sycamore
Measurements
58 x 54 x 54 mm
Order this imageCollection
Llanerchaeron, Ceredigion
NT 547815
Caption
This wooden stamp was used to shape blocks of butter into neat, rounded forms with decorative patterns impressed on the surface. Some butter stamps were used for commercial purposes, but this particular example was probably intended for domestic use. It is just one of the many items in our collections of once-commonplace objects that are now rarely seen. It is one of more than a dozen 18th-century butter stamps found in the collections at Llanerchaeron, a self-sufficient estate and model farm complex built in Ceredigion, Wales in the 1790s. Original 18th-century fittings still survive in the dairy at Llanerchaeron, including solid slate cream pans and original cheese presses.
Summary
Wooden butter stamp with outer cover. The stamp features a pattern of raised diamonds surrounded by a slanted grooved border. Probably 18th century.
Provenance
An item from the Pamela Ward Collection left to the National Trust in the will of Pamela Ward in 1994