MIND YOUR MANORS: Tried-And-True British Household Cleaning

A mix of quirky historical facts and time-tested tips, this highly entertaining guide contains advice gleaned from servants, housekeeping guides and manuals from the last two centuries. Lucy Lethbridge evokes early Downton Abbey in the era of the great British estates. They were known to be the epitome of cleanliness with their white-glove perfection. The majority of household tasks were done with basic ingredients like lemon juice, white vinegar and bicarbonate of soda which feel very modern in their display of frugality and ecological soundness. Tea leaves were used to freshen rugs and stewed rhubarb to remove rust stains. Covering dust, laundry, the kitchen sink, bringing up a shine, pests and the water closet, tea leaves can also be used for sweeping carpets, lemon juice for cleaning copper, adding salt to a vase of flowers to keep them fresh longer. Fairy soap made with olive oil came in enormous bars cut to size as required and they used old scrumpled newspapers to clean windows and bread for cleaning books. Here is the invention of Pledge and advertising, linoleum created in 1855, the vacuum cleaner and fabulous advertisements reproduced in full page colour posters for Sunlight Soap, Borax, Lux and even collections of enamel pans, mousetraps and a fantasy scene of a glamorous lady luxuriating in bed being served tea by a robot! Beautifully illustrated, colour, 118pp.