Below Stairs at Maymont

At Maymont Park last week it was possible to do a self guided tour of the kitchen and staff quarters, as well as the main part of the house.

Unlike many of the earlier houses that I have visited here, Maymont's kitchen and staff quarters are in the basement of the house.

Maymont did not have slave labour but its domestic staff were very dependent on the family who employed them.

As in the upstairs rooms there were displays of posters from 1917,  commemorating the centenary of the year that the US joined the Great War.

The kitchen benefitted from both electricity and gas but also had a coal range.

The illustration below compares the amount of time needed in 1919, 1955, 1975 and 2000 to create a dessert.

Adjacent to the kitchen is the laundry room.

Here the living quarters for the butler and the place where male staff who did not live in would change before starting work.

Female staff of the household resided or changed in this room.

It was easy to imagine staff bustling through the house in these uniforms.