MYSTERY OBJECTS

[Stanley]

You are all correct of course.... Next one!

[Stanley]

You lot are slow, try this oldie.....

[Stanley]

No takers?

[David Whipp]

Pressure gauge?

[plaques]

A symbolic presentation of the family silver spoon being put under pressure by the need to put food on the table.
On the other hand it could be simply an expansion pressure, where the target pressure must not be exceeded. Or just a pressure gauge like David suggests.

[Marilyn]

Stanley's home-made ear cleaning apparatus. The tap system suggests some refinement...perhaps enabling the ability to save retrieved ear wax for further use in the deep fat fryer?

And perhaps as a side line, he can blow up balloons with it at children's parties?

[Stanley]

David is on the right track. Have another very careful look at it.... Clue, it's a very accurate pressure gauge.....
Maz, I recycle my ear wax making Hopi ear candles.......

[David Whipp]

The vertical element looks like it could be a pump - is it for testing the pressure of something?

[Stanley]

I think you are close enough David. The connection on the opposite side to the existing gauge is for another pressure gauge. You could pump the pressure up on both of them to check the accuracy of the gauge being tested against the accurate test gauge. Occasionally you'd connect a specially calibrated standard test gauge to check the accuracy of the small gauge.



A very accurate Budenberg Standard Test Gauge.

Next one?

[Stanley]

Try this oldie. What's special about this thermometer?

[Stanley]

That went down like a lead balloon didn't it.... Hard to see from that pic but its range is from 20F to 600F. It's the thermometer Newton used to check the accuracy of the thermometers on economisers which heated feed water for the boiler under pressure.



Try this one......

[David Whipp]

For recording a trace of varying measurements from a stylus?

[Stanley]

You're getting there David. Now exactly what trace.......

[David Whipp]

I'll go for boiler pressure...

[plaques]

A steam pressure indicator for measuring the running pressure within the piston while it is running. The paper is wrapped round a cylinder and the tracing pen moves up and down against a calibrated spring. Something very similar was used on gas engines when they were trying to knock a bit of sense into me in my young days.

[Stanley]

P has it right. Papers for the Dobbie McInnes Indicator. They are special paper that accepts a trace from a small bronze stylus.



I have two indicators I used to use regularly and one which was in a smashed box and given to me. I refurbished it and you'd have a job to tell it was ever broken.

Next one?

[David Whipp]

Picked this up on a facebook group. It's in a wall at Marlfield Farm, at around waist height.

[chinatyke]

Is it a drinking trough fed by a spring?

[Stanley]

I'm with China, original version of the modern water bowl.....

[Wendyf]

It's inside the kitchen and quite small, the opening is the size of an A4 sheet of paper.

[Stanley]

In that case, is it a small hand washing basin? Fed by rain water?

[David Whipp]

So far, I think it's informed speculation about what it is; Wendy has more information than me on it.

This is an accompanying picture from Marlfield. I'm assuming this is on the outside of the wall.

[chinatyke]

Could it be a urinal and the other picture is the outlet on the outside of the wall? Maybe it wasn't always a kitchen!

[John C Layton]

I think that the age of the building - or at least the wall containing the feature - is the answer.

I would guess that the core fabric of the building is Elizabethan and, if so, then the feature could well have been incorporated into the wall as a font. This was common practice post-Dissolution where illegal Catholic Mass was celebrated in many country houses by travelling priests using hidden or disguised religious objects. If this was indeed a font within the wall then it could be hidden by a wall-hanging or furniture pushed up to the wall .

The feature is at an ideal height - the outlet to the outside would allow for rapid drainage of the holy water in case of a raid by the authorities - further, the outlet could also allow blessed water to be available to segregated people outside of the family ceremony within the house. In other words, the farm workers could take part in the Mass by standing outside thus saving the family the ordeal of having to gaze on their warty faces and breath the punjent aromas of their workers and sweaty local farmers.

On the inside of the building the feature was accorded a degree of status by incorporating quality stonework around it - not something usually found in utilitarian features. In fact, the jambs/lintle/sill form a regular-arm cross.

[Stanley]

I like that John, sounds entirely logical.....