Pictures

A poster from nearly 200 years ago tells how some Piltonians lived, in this case a certain T. Harding who died in 1830 and his furniture sold by auction. The list of household goods includes his "Four-post and Tent Bedsteads" together with "Moreen and cotton hangings" and all the other sleeping paraphernalia. He owned some high class mahogany furniture, card tables, India Tea Set, Butler's and Knife trays and a "Dumb Waiter."
Exactly what form the dumb waiter took isn't described, but it would probably have been a wooden square frame operated by rope pulleys to carry (usually) food and drinks between floors in the Harding household. The poster, advertising the auction by W. Stribling, doesn't say where Mr Harding lived, but, as is described elsewhere on this site, a Thomas Harding ran the Reform Inn in 1847, and the two men were likely to have been related, possibly father and son.