24/05/2025
Kitchen Life in Edwardian Times – Olveston’s Heart of the Home
Spending time in the Olveston kitchen, you quickly realise just how labour-intensive daily life was for the household staff. Despite a number of innovative tools for the era, such as cast-iron mincers, bean slicers, and mandolins, kitchen work demanded both strength and skill. These heavy, hand-powered devices didn’t just save time—they also built muscle and required constant attention to use safely.
Cooking was done on a coal-fired Eagle Range, imported all the way from London. This top-of-the-line range featured rare additions for New Zealand at the time: a mica window for watching cakes rise and a thermometer to monitor oven temperature—true luxuries. Lighting and maintaining the coal fire was a job in itself, but the results were worth the effort.
The cookware, from kettles to saucepans, was made of cast iron—excellent for cooking, but heavy and cumbersome to handle. Butter was made by hand, as evidenced by the butter pats still in the pantry, and large blocks of ice were scraped and stored in the ice chest (now no longer at Olveston) to keep perishables cold.
One of the standout features of the kitchen is the spacious walk-in meat safe, fitted with marble shelves and large hooks to hang kosher meat. Just off the scullery, it was cool and practical. The scullery itself, equipped with both copper and porcelain sinks, also followed kosher kitchen practice and featured a clever delivery window to pass in supplies from outside. Larger deliveries were brought into the basement below, where bulk storage was conveniently located nearby.
In 1930, the household embraced modern technology with the addition of an American Frigidaire electric refrigerator—revolutionising food storage and preparation. Later, Dorothy (after the passing of her parents) purchased a Hamilton Beach electric cake mixer in the 1940s and a locally made Champion gas cooker, easing her kitchen routine and removing the need to light the coal range each day.
Olveston's kitchen suite includes three interconnected rooms:
1. The Main Kitchen, where the coal range sits, houses two large kauri tables, cupboards, a sideboard, and shelves stocked with all manner of kitchen tools.
2. The Scullery, with four sinks and ample shelving, served as a cleaning and prep space.
3. The Butler’s Pantry, where fine crystal, bone china, silverware, and linen are still stored behind glass doors and in a large silver safe. This space also includes a copper sink with an early 1900s water filter.
With scrubbed kauri benches, linoleum floors, and a practical layout, these rooms formed the functional and social centre of the home. The hours were long for the kitchen staff, especially when the family was in residence. But at the end of the day, it was just a climb to the attic rooms above, where the weary could rest before starting again at dawn.
Come on one of our six daily 1-hour guided House Tours and learn about the Theomin family, their magnificent collection and how they lived in the early 1900s. You can check out more about Olveston by visiting our website: https://olveston.co.nz
Olveston Historic Home is an authentic historic experience in the heart of Dunedin.
Article prepared by Vivienne Houston, guide at Olveston Historic Home.
