Mind Your Manors

British estates were known to be the epitome of cleanliness with their white-glove perfection. For her research on servants, Lucy Lethbridge absorbed an amazing trove of knowledge about how these homes were made to gleam from Victorian through Edwardian years. She noticed that many household tasks used common, nontoxic ingredients, which feel very modern in their display of frugality and ecological soundness. Tea leaves were used to freshen up rugs, while lemon was applied to dispatch marks on teakettles and stewed rhubarb to remove rust stains. Here, Lethbridge reveals these old-fashioned and almost forgotten techniques that made British households sparkle before the use of complicated contraptions and chemical concoctions. Including quotes from servants and the doyennes of household cleaning, as well as charming art from the classic domestic manuals, this is the perfect gift for Anglophiles and those who want to put time-tested cleaning methods to work.