A rare turned three-part Welsh sycamore mortar or spice mill. Made in three sections – the top handle part has the remains of a metal plate which was used to grind up various herbs and spices in the middle section and the grounded material was then collected in the base.

10” high x 4” diameter of base / 25.4cm high x 10cm diameter of base

Cardiganshire, Wales circa 1800

Provenance: The St John & Judy Stimson treen & folkart collection Pembroke (formerly the Museum of the Home, Westgate Street, Pembroke).

£850.00

A similar example is illustrated in the ‘Guide to the collection of Welsh Bygones’ by Iorweth C Peate & published by the National Museum of Wales in 1929.  ….and pepper-mills were also of common occurrence; a mill exhibited (Plate XIII, 4) is of sycamore wood from North Cardiganshire and is in three parts. The top part has a piece of rough pierced metal fixed into it. The pepper corns were put into the centre part which also contained a metal grater. The corns were reduced to powder between the two graters, the ground pepper being received in the bottom part.

Very similar mortar graters are also illustrated in Treen for the Table by Jonathan Levi & published by the Antique Collectors Club 1998 – …A fine large English sycamore mortar grater with excellent nutty colour and patination and a deeply concave turning to the underside of the foot. Last quarter 17th century…

In Jane Tollers book ‘Treen’ published in 1975, she describes them as Mortar Grinders – Those of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are rare and very interesting. They are tall, well-turned pieces of treen.they were usually made in two parts, the bottom part being the mortar into which fitted the pastel-grinder which had a knob to facilitate handling. The pestle had a tin grater nailed to its base. The constituents to be ground were placed in the mortar, and first pounded and then ground with the pestle. Sometimes there is a third part at the bottom of the mortar – a chamber into which the ground material was voided. Peppercorns, cloves, garlic, mace, and even tobacco leaves were ground in this way until the end of the 17th century.