Page 16 - Copshaholm Curriculum Book_2015

The Victorian Home 7
very keen about continually testing the iron with a finger so it wouldn’t scorch the fabric.
Since the ‘no-iron’ miracle fabrics we have today didn’t exist then, everything they
washed had to be ironed!

The Carriage House

Just as we have garages today for our cars, the Victorians had carriage houses for
their horses and buggies.

The carriage house was often a good-sized building and usually included a tiny
apartment on the second floor to house the stable boy. It was the stable boy’s job to
feed and groom the horses, keep the buggy shiny and the horse stalls clean.
Sometimes he also acted as the chauffeur.

There were automobiles in the late Victorian era but they were so rare that in the
mid-1890s the Barnum & Bailey Circus displayed an auto as its main oddity. Even in
1900 there were only 8000 cars in use and roads were in such rough shape that it was
many years until cars became practical.

In areas where there was often a lot of ice and snow, the family would own a sleigh
to be used instead of a buggy during the winter months.

The flower or vegetable garden was close to the carriage house so the stable boy
could work the hay and manure sweepings from the stables into the garden soil.1

1 Some material borrowed from The Victorian House Coloring Book by Kristin Helberg, 1980.