Date of upstairs Range in The Street, Milton Abbas – 1780 or 1820?

The range is intended for cooking and not just heating.

As far as we know this is the only surviving upstairs range in The Street. It would be great (no pun intended!) if this is an original installation with the building of c.1780. This would provide evidence that four families were intended to be housed in one house – two families upstairs and two down.

However it may be a later addition when we know that in the 1830’s an MP claimed there were 36 people in one house.

This nameplate of the foundry Crocker Fenner & Co, Dorchester should be traceable and give us a date.