The Still Room

Appears in

Published 2019

About

UNLIKE KITCHENS, STILL ROOMS WERE CLEAN, quiet spaces, away from the heat and bustle of the main cooking space. They were presided over by the housekeeper, who in very large houses had a still room maid to assist her. As the name suggests, the rooms were originally intended for the distillation of spirits and housed stills.

At that time, in the Tudor era, distilled liquors were seen primarily as medicines, and often the mistress of the house would play an active role in preparing medicinal cordials and spirits for the household. However, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, distilled spirits became far more about drinking for pleasure, and the role of the still room changed to encompass anything that was outside the area of daily cookery, thus jams and other preserves, as well as drying flowers and candying fruits, flowers, and peels.