Object of the Month: Warming Pan
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What does the warming pan look like?
This warming pan at Selly Manor has a brass pan with holes, which let the heat out. The pan also has a picture of a man without a body and around the outside are the words ‘who burned the bed nobody’. The handle is made out of wrought iron, which made it valuable to the family and would have been handed down the generations.
Where would you find the warming pan?
You would find it in a bedroom next to the fireplace.
What does it do?
It was used to heat the bed like the electrical blanket or the hot water bottle today.
How does it work?
The warming pan was filled with hot embers from a fire and placed under the bedclothes to warm the bed.
Interesting facts
The earliest known example of a warming pan was in 1616. This warming pan from Selly Manor was made in 1660.
The character ‘nobody ‘ on the warming pan was blamed for lots of naughty things in the 1600s
Why is this object interesting?
This is interesting because it is a good example of a Tudor invention that we still use today, although hot water bottles are a lot safer and less smelly!
Student on placement from Baskerville school.