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Not wanting to be left out of these pros and cons of different stoves, I thought I would resurrect a post I did many months ago. Foody will remember this because when she went away for Easter, she and hubby popped into a local church for a look around and found a 'Tortoise' stove.
This brought to mind a poem by John Betjeman called Christmas. The first verse being:-
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hooker's Green.
So, how did a stove get a name like that. I had heard of 'Pot-bellied' stoves named after their shape.....but a tortoise ?
No surely not.
Well, after a bit of digging up came the history:-
" In the Church can also be seen a excellent example of a Portway Patent Tortoise Slow Combustion Stove Size 2. Charles Portway designed and hand built his first Tortoise stove in 1830 in Halstead Essex. He started a foundry which by 1900 had produced over 100,000 stoves. The success of a solid fuel stove was judged by its slowness to burn one filling, thus extracting the maximum amount of heat from the fuel. The Portbury stoves burnt so slowly they were named 'Tortoise' stoves. Each stove was produced with the motto "slow but sure combustion" displayed on the top or front."
The Trade Mark shows the 'Slow But Sure' tortoise.
Now having a similar stove in my conservatory, I had to go and investigate its manufacturer.
No....it wasn't a tortoise.....it was a 'Deville' and its 'eyes' on the front glow red from the fire.
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Probably banned by some regulation, legislation, directives, rules......
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And still on the subject of cooking....do I get carbon credits for this?
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Well thank you, Bernard. I've always wondered about Betjeman's tortoise stove. I like the 'Deville' in your conservatory, style-wise it fits in so well, much more elegant than some of the modern electrics.
ReplyDeleteI would never have worked out what tortoise symbolised if you hadn't done the research.
ReplyDeleteI like the look of the stove in your conservatory.
It must be the nostalgia in us all that empathises in some way with all things that seem to have come from a bygone age. I wonder if a 2010 Apple Mac or a 2009 Dyson ever be so admired in the future?
ReplyDeleteIs that burnt chicken the result of your efforts at the weekend? I bet the black bits were very tasty actually.
ReplyDeleteI remember that visit well. In the same village we came across a man carrying a run-over grass snake. He was taking it to show his friend who had never seen one.
Talking of eyes that glow red, did you ever see the "Aladdin" factory on the Western Avenue at Greenford (the ancestral home). At the top of the tower, a light burned day and night and was called Aladdins lamp and was visible for miles.
ReplyDeleteValerie and Cherie: Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI love Betjeman’s work, but often when reading I tend to gloss over bits like this without really looking into it. It was Foody who inspired me to investigate.
CJ, I doubt it. Although saying that I have noticed a number of people enthusing over cars, maybe only ten or twenty years old. “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder”.
But surely not….a Dyson. (I must tread carefully - Kath has one)!
Foooooody: I don’t burn my dinner. I’m very careful. Mind you, I read that all supermarket chickens are infected with ’something-or-other’ which is killed by cooking properly. I do make sure it’s well done!
Hi Kath (the Wall of Death Dyson Rider)!
No, I don’t remember that. I remember the Wall’s sausage factory and wasn’t there a Hoover one as well. My old Aladdin paraffin greenhouse heater went up the tip last year……paraffin too expensive.