The great kitchen

This is where most of the cooking took place. 

There were two large open ranges where joints of meat were spit roasted or where great cauldrons of meat boiled and at each end of the kitchen were charcoal stoves on which sauces and ragoûts were gently stirred. 

At one side of the main fireplace is a rare 18th century survival – a small octagonal oven, used for cooking pies and tarts. 

The scullery

The scullery was next to the kitchen and where the many dirty plates, dishes, pots and pans were cleaned. 

A harsh liquid soap called lye was used for this, though copper pans had to be scrubbed thoroughly with sand to make sure no lingering traces of food remained which could result in poisonous verdigris forming in the crevices.

The bake house

This is where the bread was cooked and which, to this day, retains its original kneading table and two small ovens which would have been used to bake bread rolls and loaves.

The wet larder

This is where joints of meat wrapped in muslin were hung from the still existing hooks in the ceiling. They would have been kept there only for a few days before being taken to the kitchen to be cooked. 

Fish also would have briefly been stored here in barrels, perhaps kept cool with ice from the nearby ice house.

The silver scullery

This is most likely to have been the final room in the lower level of the kitchens but a diary written in 1821, informed by the long term housekeeper to George III’s family, Mrs Tunstall, indicates that George III in his later years took the warm baths prescribed by his doctors, here in the kitchen building. That would not have seemed so extraordinary then as it may seem today.