A Tortoise Stove

A post not in any way connected with music.

A certain blogger, who went away for Easter, popped into a church for a look around.

There in a corner was a 'Tortoise' stove. This brought to mind a poem by John Betjeman called Christmas.  The first verse being:-

          The bells of waiting Advent ring,

           The Tortoise stove is lit again

        And lamp-oil light across the night

      Has caught the streaks of winter rain

     In many a stained-glass window sheen

      From Crimson Lake to Hooker's Green. 

So, how did a stove get a name like that. I had heard of 'Pot-bellied' stoves named after their shape.....but a tortoise ? No surely not.

Well, after a bit of digging up came the history:-

" In the Church can also be seen a excellent example of a Portway Patent Tortoise Slow Combustion Stove Size 2.   Charles Portway designed and hand built his first Tortoise stove in 1830 in Halstead Essex. He started a foundry which by 1900 had produced over 100,000 stoves. The success of a solid fuel stove was judged by its slowness to burn one filling, thus extracting the maximum amount of heat from the fuel. The Portbury stoves burnt so slowly they were named 'Tortoise' stoves. Each stove was produced with the motto "slow but sure combustion" displayed on the top or front."

The Trade Mark shows the 'Slow But Sure' tortoise.

Now having a similar stove in my conservatory, I had to go and investigate its manufacturer.

No....it wasn't a tortoise.....it was a 'Deville' and its 'eyes' on the front glow red from the fire.