Mauchline Ware are wooden souvenirs manufactured in Scotland, primarily in factories in or near Mauchline and predominantly made of sycamore. The items have various finishes in a large variety of applications. Most Mauchline Ware products have transfers or photographs of popular tourist locations. There were also finishes with tartan, fern and black lacquer.
On offer here is a little photograph album that has a nice Mauchline ware cover. The cover is made of honey-toned wood with a pronounced and lovely grain. The wood is rather shiny and any white marks on my images are not on the book - but are reflections of light falling on the surface. It would have been an expensive Victorian souvenir which more wealthy tourists might have purchased on their travels in Scotland.
The front cover of the book has a vignette showing Old Herne Church in Kent (St Martin's Church). The church dates back to the 14th century and has three aisles, three chancels and the tall square tower.
The cover is in good condition, front and back - and the spine is made of leather - this is also in good condition with no splitting. Inside the pages are nice and clean - no scribbles to the pages or inscriptions. All the pages are made of card with oval inserts for the Victorians to place family photographs in. Each page in this book as an image of members of sadly unidentified Kent family. These are all antique albumen prints. There are a couple of old repairs to tears to an oval made in the distant past - as photographed. The style of the photographs and costume date this wee album to the 1860s or 1870s. I love the one with the little girl on her rocking horse. Obviously they were an upper class Kentish family.
The back of the volume has a tiny paper vignette of Herne Bay.
It is a nice enough little Mauchline photo album - and nice to find it intact with all its original albumen portraits inside. It is listed here at a very fair price for a piece of Victoriana.
It will be posted to you with Royal Mail Recorded postage. FREE POSTAGE
HISTORY: Mauchline Wares are Scottish wooden items which date from about the 1880s - until the 1900s. They are generally wooden souvenirs and giftware - made of fruitwood and decorated with black transfer designs. The scenes are usually of landmarks and popular towns - and spots favoured by tourists. They were very popular in their day and many pieces were exported globally.
The center of the Mauchline Ware industry is the small village of Mauchline - which is located 11 miles inland from the Scottish coastal resort of Ayr. At its peak over 400 people were involved in the manufacture of these small (but always beautifully made) wooden souvenirs. Similar products were also made in Lanark - but most of the pieces are known by the generic name of Mauchline Ware.