London 1702

To Mr Purdon for 3 Chamber potts and 2 basons broke 2s 6d (£21) Samuel Purdon for 5 weeks house Rent as from Recept £20

Trigg paid Samuel Purdon, the letting agent, a total of 8 weeks rent - £32 (£5,357) excluding breakages, although the family stayed only 6 weeks. Servants may have arrived earlier and left later. Trusler 1790 quotes London furnished house rental per week at 8 guineas, £6 in 1702, inferring that Alice rented an apartment in Holland House. He advises, whatever is destroyed is paid for.

Coffee and a late 17th century recipe for making it

a pound of Coffee 3s 10d (£32), 6 Coffee dishes 6s (£50), a Tinn Coffee Pott 1s

Until the first European coffee plantation was established in Java around 1700, the entire world's coffee beans were grown in Ethiopia and southern Yemen. The transport costs may explain why Alice's coffee cost 6-fold more than today. The first coffee shop opened in London in 1652, but in Germany, women were discouraged from drinking coffee as it was thought to make them sterile.

The family may have acquired a palate, for in October a pound of Coffee berys was purchased for Belton @ 5s (£42). They would necessitate home roasting. Re-enacting the recipe above produces a coffee strong, fragrant and flavourful.

The purchase of Coffee dishes contradicts researchers who claim that the earliest tea cups had no handles and were referred to as tea bowls while early coffee and chocolate cups did have handles. Prints of the Pantheon, Oxford Street dated 1772, still illustrate the use of handleless bowls on dishes, with the latter held in the hand. Nowhere in Trigg's accounts so far examined is tea ever mentioned.

Chocolate

a Chocolate Mill 1s 2d

Pepys is one of the first to record London hot chocolate drinking, but typically in insalubrious coffee houses. Not where Alice would take her daughters.

Waked in the morning with my head in a sad taking through the last night’s drink, which I am very sorry for; so rose and went out with Mr. Creed to drink our morning draft, which he did give me in chocolate to settle my stomach.

Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) , physician to Queen Anne, had spent 15 months in Jamaica. He disliked the bitter cocoa beans of the New World and advocated the use of a concoction of cocoa, sugar and milk, which we now know as chocolate, but mostly as a medicinal beverage. Continuing evidence of the Brownlows' taste for for chocolate is Belton's silver 1717 chocolate pot.

Water

To Mr Sumter for water £1 10s, water for the Laundry and Kitchen 1s 10 1/2d, 11 Turns of water @1.5d 1s 4 1/2d

25+ tuns (6,000+ gallons) of Conduit Water were delivered as either no running water in the accommodation or contaminated. Fresh water was essential. A good number of deaths categorised in the 1702 Bills of Mortality as fever and griping in the guts, are reasonably attributed to water-borne typhoid and cholera. Before the Chelsea Waterworks Company was formed in 1723, water came from Kensington Palace Green. There, existed a conduit from Henry VIII's time used for bathing. Sir John Vanbrugh erected a brick water Tower to supply Queen Anne's (1702-1711) Kensington Palace. It may have supplied Holland House too. Alternatively, the fresh springs at the Bayswater Conduit, Conduit Street, Paddington, 2 miles distant, had provided a fresh water source since the C15.

Milk

To Madame Margarett for the Milk Maids 2s 6d. 48 quarts of milk @ 1.5d 6s

Demonstrates that Alice's daughters were practicing their household skills. Butter was bought separately. This suggests that the milk was being drunk or used in cooking, but 96 pints in one purchase is a lot! Could the Brownlows have indulged in milk baths for health or cosmetic benefits, popular from the times of Charles II.

Treacle Water

2 bottles of Treakell water 15s

Aqua Theriacalis, "Treacle Water, Is good in the Plague or pestilential Fever, the French disease [syphilis]. It killeth Worms, helpeth the trembling of the heart, and is good to be mingled in Diaphoreticks [medicines to cause sweating]". The 1701 Bills of Mortality records 20,471 deaths from the plague that year out of a London population of perhaps half a million.

Other

2 bottles of white wine 3s.

a quart of ale 5d.

a quart of Brandy 2s 6d

for. Anaseed water and a viall 7d Aqua seminum anisi composita for flatulence and excessive sweating

Syrup of Marshamallows 9d (used to soothe coughs and sore throats)

When resident at Belton there is never mention of vegetable purchase, as these would come from the kitchen garden on the site of today's Italian Garden. In London, where all the food was bought in we have mention of, Spinage, Sprouts, horsrad, oynons, colliflowers, pease, mint, rosemary, hartichokes, carootts, cowcombers, sorell and Scott herbs. The latter either for a pottage or medicinal. The University of Glasgow medical school, around 1704, constructed “the Physic Garden,” an herb garden with medicinal plants.

The asparagus season runs from St George's day on the 23rd April through to Summer Solstice on the 21st June. During their stay the family got through seven orders of in total 900 Sparagrass at a cost of £20 (£159). Pepys confirms the high price of this luxury in 1667.

So home, and having brought home with me from Fenchurch Street a hundred of sparrowgrass, cost 18d. We had them and a little bit of salmon

NB We is him and his wife, i.e. 50 spears each. John Evelyn describes eating sperage in his diary - delicious eaten raw with oyl and vinegar. Louis Lémery (Traité des aliments 1702), a French botanist and chemist recommended Sparagrass for dissolving stones in the kidney and bladder, Women's terms (menstruation), removing obstructions and easing of digestion. He comments about the asparagusic acid disagreeable Smell in the Urine, as every Body knows, but nearly two thirds are genetically unable to smell it.

7 doz of Oranges and Lemons sent to Belton 13s 3d (£111)

Lemons from the Azures since 1494 mainly shipped to England. Sweet oranges imported by Portuguese traders or from the Canary Islands. Unlikely to be homegrown, one of the earliest orangeries being that at Kenwood House c1700. Scurvy causing Putrefaction of the Gums; rotten, black, and loose Teeth; stinking Breath was recognised from C17. Various quack medications were recommended. Trigg's purchase of citrus fruits were frequent, possibly to protect against scurvy. In 1617 John Woodall, surgeon general of the East India Company, prescribed lemon juice as a daily preventative on company ships. While Ebbot Michell's handwritten household recipe book of 1707 recommended mixing the extracts of various plants with a plentiful supply of orange juice, white wine and beer.

Apricocks or Apracocks, 500 for 7s 6d (£63).

In the 18th century, apricots could ripen by April using dung. The manure piled six foot high against the rear of a wall with espaliered apricot trees, would rot releasing heat and warming the wall. It needed replenishing every month to keep a constant heat. Louis Lémery's advice was ignored - [apricots] fill the stomach with wind and easily corrupt ... they ought to be moderately taken. Importantly the apricot kernel was believed to get rid of intestinal worms. The 1702 Bill for Mortalities reports 60 deaths from worms.

Goosberys, Cherrys, Strawberys, half a hundred Peruns ...

a Sermon book 6d

a Common prayer book for my Lady 5s

Sir Charles Sedleys book 4s

A version of the same, but a 1707 edition belonging to Eleanor is in Belton's library

A Coch (coach) from the play house 1s

The choice in May included The Comical Gallant; Or, The Amours Of Sir John Falstaffe at the Drury Lane Theatre, or Divine Musick in Praise of Religion and Vertue-; both Vocal and instrumental, with new Anthems compos'd by Mr Blow; an Oration by Mr Collier; Pieces by Mr Tate, her Majesty's Poet Laureat. at Stationer's Hall or Her Majesties Company of Rope Dancers (acrobats). There are other possibilities for the first week in May.

To Mr Willis for 2 musik books 2s

To Mr Willis for Songs for him prints 3s 6d

Binding a bible and a new Common

prayer and a Pocriphy (apocrypha) 6s

for Strings and other musik 1s 6d

a Flambo 1s x2 Flambeau, a flaming torch for guiding at night; the family were out after sunset at 19.30

Some Examples

a new Looking Glass in a Silver Frame 5s

William Warner his bill for tarts £1 8s 6d

an Abstract of the Land tax 2d

The land tax was not payable by the tenant

5 Looking glasses £1 5s

To Jane when she paid for Flowers 4d

for a deale box for the Cherrey

and Glasses 4s

for 2 books of Leave gold 4s

Mr Legg for a pare of gloves

for the Young Ladys 4s

Stephen Lawrence his bill for Pewter £12 16s (£2,059)

The remaining pewter at Belton has not been dated.

Richard Turner his bill for Garden Seeds £2 18s 6d (£490)

A 1673 seed catalogue was primarily vegetables and herbs with just two flowers, poppy and stock.

Thomas Fowler his bill for Glasses £8 16s (£1,473)

The surviving glassware at Belton has not been fully dated

Rowland Freeman (Oylman) his bill £2s 6d (£385)

William May his bill for candles £1 (£167)

The oil bill is for lighting with commonly used fuels olive oil, fish oil, beeswax, whale oil, and other vegetable-derived oils.

Other bills covered, butter, bread, meat, washing clothes, coal and charcoal. Coal is not seen in the Belton accounts, thus wood may have been the primary combustible for cooking and heating when at home.

The image shows the Brownlow's house when used as a 20-bedded hospital.

8 loads from Holland house to Brownlowe Street 15s called Betterton Street from 1877

'Old' Sir John Brownlow lived at Lennox House, Brownlow Street off Drury Lane. His great nephew, builder of Belton, husband to Alice, 'Young' Sir John Brownlow inherited that estate and develop the property and Belton Street, letting plots with building leases for a term expiring in 1728. Leases for 15 messuages with lands survive, e.g. for tradesmen - bricklayer, carpenter, upholsterer, timber merchant & comb-maker. Lennox house was partially demolished, but from 1749 it became the oldest maternity hospital in London, the British Lying-In Hospital for Married Women. It later moved to Endell Street, in 1849, previously named Belton Street (developed by 'Young' Sir John in 1682). It closed in 1913.

There is yet another Brownlow Street off High Holborn developed by William Brownlow, son of Richard and younger brother to 'Old' Sir John.

the Carman for carrying 3 load of Goods from Holland house to St James £1 (£167)

This may refer to 23 Arlington Street, St James's. This was Alice's brother-in-law's house, William Brownlow. William inherited the Brownlow estate following his brother's suicide in 1697. He died in 1701 and his wife 1700. The house passed to their son the 11-year-old John Brownlow and future Viscount Tyrconnel, third owner of Belton. Cousin and later wife to Eleanor, he lived there with his maternal grandmother, Lady Mason, Anna Margaretta Long (1641-1717) and possibly at Worcester Park House part of Henry VIII's Nonsuch Palace. Lady Mason has a manuscript of songs in her hand in Belton's library.