Illustrated with period drawings, engravings and colour photographs of the kitchen restored for the BBC television series on which the book is based, this is an insight into a bygone age. The upstairs/downstairs image is of maids in starched aprons overseen by an outwardly stern cook with a heart of gold, but what was life really like below stairs in Victorian times? Looking behind the scenes at the vast collection of equipment used, from the dusty, smoky range, which was cleaned and coaxed into life at 6 o'clock each morning, to the gleaming coppers which were every cook's pride and joy, the book also meets Ruth Mott, the cook featured in the television series. She started work as a scullery maid in an old-style country house in 1930, when mansion kitchens still ran on Victorian lines. There are details of the Victorian culinary technique of preserving; of the five meals a day prepared by the kitchen staff - breakfast, luncheon, tea, dinner and supper; and of a collection of recipes specially adapted from Victorian cookery books. Jennifer Davies also wrote The Victorian Kitchen Garden and The Victorian Flower Garden.