Mystery Strainer Pot - Can you tell us what it was used for?
Maker: Thomas Furnival & Sons Elder Road, Cobridge, Staffordshire
Date of manufacture: 1875 - 1890
Type: Some sort of strainer!! Colours: Blue Pattern: None
Grateful thanks to Todd Warner for permission to use his photos of this mystery piece. It is 4 1/4" tall. If you know what it was intended for please get in touch, we would love to know, and so would Todd.
Update Jan 2022, Anabela Cunha contacted us with a possible use, her ideas are copied below. It sounds very feasible to us, if you have any comments please get in touch.
Anabela Cunha wrote: What immediately came to my mind was to use it to make onion syrup.
My auntie who is now on her eighties taught me to do onion syrup.
You put onion on a bowl, sprinkle it with sugar, more layers of onion and sugar, and leave it overnight.
A syrup will begin to form on the top, if you take it (drink it with a spoon) it will cure you from throat infection, when you don't have voice.
Looking at it, that is what I would use it for.
Layer the onion and the sugar, the syrup will start forming and dripping out of the pot, I would put it above a collecting container, such as a bowl or similar.
I can imagine it being used for a similar use, that involves layering leaves or such for medicinal use.
A second piece that is similar has now appeared, courtesy of Valda Collinson who has kindly allowed us to use her photos.