Floor-to-ceiling rows of round wooden breadboards line the walls of Madeleine Neave’s unconventional front room in Putney. Huge glass-fronted display cabinets are packed full of boards, too, and there are more still, stacked neatly in racks inside the fireplace.
‘It all started in the 1980s when my late mother, Rosslyn, found a pretty breadboard in an antiques shop,’ explains Madeleine. ‘It just caught her eye. The carving was beautiful; it was portable and practical. It was priced at £5 but she refused to pay that much, then spent the whole week kicking herself. When she returned to the shop, it was still there and she paid £3 for it.’
Rosslyn – an antiques dealer and collector – began selling breadboards to her clients, but soon found she couldn’t part with one after another. ‘She would put one on a shelf “just to enjoy it for the week” and they slowly accrued – like barnacles,’ recalls Madeleine.
When Rosslyn sadly suffered from dementia in old age, Madeleine created a ‘therapy room’ for her in their home to keep her in touch with her past passion and, when she passed away, Madeleine decided to ‘throw it open to the public’.
‘I didn’t know if anybody would want to come,’ she says, ‘but I pinged off an email to Time Out and, incredibly, somebody came!’
Her mother also left behind 20 box loads of painstaking research on breadboards, which she had amassed over the years. Sadly, she died without it all being published, but Madeleine has in fact written the book herself.
Prices for antique breadboards vary considerably. ‘A British breadboard is one piece of sycamore. There are no joins. That’s what makes them robust. A plain 1950s or 60s breadboard that hasn’t been scorched, warped or cracked could cost as little as £20,’ reveals Madeleine. ‘At the other end of the spectrum, I have heard of rare, early breadboards in good condition selling for as much as £600-£1,000 to collectors.’
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Humans have eaten food from simple wooden slabs for thousands of years but the real ancestors of the breadboard were ‘trenchers’, flat wooden platters that were used for serving and cutting meat and bread. They evolved into designs with circular indents to contain meat juices and some (from wealthier households) have smaller depressions, too, for salt.
‘These ancient trenchers are extremely rare today, although there is a collection of over 100 in Abingdon County Hall Museum, along with the inventories that show their date of purchase as 1556. They were used for official dinners to entertain local dignitaries,’ says Madeleine, who has a few in her inherited collection. ‘Six examples were found on the Mary Rose, too.’
Bread was cut on plain, unremarkable wooden boards until the early Victorian period when everything changed with the introduction of the Corn Laws in 1815 (just after the Battle of Waterloo).
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‘Suddenly, bread was expensive,’ reveals Madeleine. ‘All foreign wheat had a tariff imposed on it and local wheat prices were bumped up, too. The population was semi-starved because bread was a staple, but the landowners who were selling the wheat were also the MPs who were creating the laws.’
Bread became so scarce that only the rich could afford it and they commissioned carvers to create decorative ‘bread platters’ so they could show off their bread. These early Victorian boards were intricately carved and often personalised with family mottos and heraldry. ‘They were like shields, really,’ notes Madeleine.
When the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846, bread became affordable again and enterprising carvers began churning out cheaper breadboards for the masses. ‘George Wing in Sheffield started a dynasty of bread platter making,’ Madeleine explains.
‘His designs were simple but beautiful. He had a catalogue of inexpensive off-the-peg boards and provided a bespoke service, too – a breadboard is the most wonderful opportunity for self-expression.’
Late Victorian breadboards sometimes had biblical phrases or mottos such as ‘Don’t eat too much’, ‘Be thankful’ or ‘Cut and come again’.
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Wheat and floral borders were popular, as were Jubilee and pilgrimage boards. Breadboards were given on any occasion, like a greetings card.
In the early part of the 20th century, breadboards became plainer as aesthetics changed and people became more aware that carved crevices weren’t hygienic. ‘Breadboards were still hand-carved, but they were batch-produced. The quality of the wood went down, too, because all the older big sycamores had already been cut down and only younger trees were available.’
Breadboards had mostly been round because dough naturally forms a ball for baking, in the style of the cottage loaf. ‘When tin-baked loaves were introduced in the mid 1800s, the round boards still worked because the tins, although rectangular, were still quite small and fitted on fine.
The old Hovis loaf is a good example,’ explains Madeleine. But in the 1960s, when large 800g pre-sliced loaves came in, round breadboards were no longer suitable. The trend was to switch to plain rectangular boards.
‘Breadboards were in every kitchen in the country,’ points out Madeleine. To many, an antique breadboard is much more than just a wooden platter; it’s a symbol of friendship, family and love.
For more information read Vintage Breadboards by Madeleine Neave (£16, Prospect Books 2019).
Caring for a vintage breadboard
- Don’t leave it sitting in water or near heat. ‘Water will warp it and heat will crack or scorch it,’ warns Madeleine.
- Oil your board with any plant-based oil that you like the smell of. ‘I use a tiny bit of sunflower oil and rub it in with a paper towel, whenever a board looks sort of hungry,’ explains Madeleine. ‘Leave it to sink in for 24 hours, then you can use it. It will feel a bit greasy for a while but it’s good for the wood. Boards that haven’t been oiled regularly take on a blonder appearance.’
- Gently sand your board now and again to remove the upper layer. ‘All wood has its own antibacterial properties. It absorbs, whereas plastic doesn’t. On a plastic board, the residue of food sits inside score marks, trapped. But with wood, it sinks into the wood and any bacteria die in there,’ reveals Madeleine.
- Wash your board gently, using warm water and a cloth, and let the wood dry thoroughly.
Where to buy
Antique Breadboards, ebay.co.uk/usr/antiquebreadboards – Madeleine’s new shop, where she sells spare breadboards from the museum’s collection.
Appleby Antiques, applebyantiques.net
Hemswell Antique Centres, hemswell-antiques.com
Tom Samuel, tomsamuel.co.uk – traditional breadboards by a contemporary craftsman.
