Welsh dresser

A Welsh dresser (British English) or a china hutch (American English), sometimes known as a kitchen dresser or pewter cupboard, is a piece of wooden furniture consisting of drawers and cupboards in the lower part, with shelves and perhaps a sideboard on top. Traditionally, it is a utilitarian piece of furniture used to store and display crockery, silverware and pewter-ware, but is also used to display general ornaments.

A Welsh dresser on display in Bedford Museum

Description

A Welsh dresser is a piece of wooden furniture consisting of drawers and cupboards in the lower part, with shelves and perhaps a sideboard on top. Traditionally, it is a utilitarian piece of furniture used to store and display crockery, silverware and pewter-ware, but is also used to display general ornaments.[1][2][3]

History
A plain Welsh dresser

Originally, a dresser was located in the kitchen and was a utilitarian piece of furniture where meat and other food was dressed or prepared, while prepared food was placed on sideboards in the dining room ready to be served.[4][5] They could be modified to suit local needs; for example, dressers in the Scottish Highlands may have a "porridge drawer"—a tin-lined drawer into which freshly made porridge was emptied and left to cool. When cold, slices of the porridge could be cut out and taken out of the house for later consumption.[6]

Gradually, the purely utilitarian function of the dresser was supplemented with other functions, such as a means of displaying the best crockery in a farmhouse. Once it became a means of display, the dresser could also be found in dining rooms where it served as sideboard and a place to store and display dinner ware.[7] In the 19th century, various different styles of ceramics would evolve to fill the plate racks of the Welsh dressers of Wales and to meet the needs of the Welsh market. Furthermore, many local traditions of what constitutes the proper care and display of the items on a Welsh dresser would come to assume an important role in the culture of North Wales in particular.[8]

See also
Look up Welsh dresser in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References
  1. Welsh dresser Archived 2017-09-13 at the Wayback Machine Longman dictionary of contemporary English, Accessed 22 April 2010
  2. Welsh dresser Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine Free dictionary cites: the English Collins Dictionary - English Definition & Thesaurus
  3. Percy W. Blandford. A home full of furniture: 79 more furniture projects for every room, Tab Books, 1990, ISBN 0-8306-7500-0, ISBN 978-0-8306-7500-5. p. 335 Archived 2022-10-20 at the Wayback Machine "Welsh dresser (china hutch), 158–168"
  4. Davis, Karen (2001). More than a meal: the turkey in history, myth, ritual, and reality (illustrated ed.). Lantern Books. p. 58. ISBN 1-930051-88-3. 'dresser' meaning the table on which meat and other foods were prepare
  5. "2601 Dressers and Sideboards A brief History". RightPriceFurniture. Archived from the original on 15 March 2012. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  6. BBC staff (12 October 2008). "Secret weapon wins porridge title". BBC. Archived from the original on 7 November 2011. Retrieved 19 November 2010.
  7. Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2004). Encyclopedia of kitchen history (2, illustrated ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 128. ISBN 1-57958-380-6. Archived from the original on 2022-10-20. Retrieved 2020-11-22.
  8. Dai Davies (9 September 2012). "History of the Welsh Dresser". Archived from the original on 20 September 2012. Retrieved 9 September 2012.
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