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as needed for that particular day’s dinner and supper.

    20.   Freshwater fish Many of these varieties, illustrated in Hannah Woolley’s The Accomplish’t Lady’s Delight , would have been brought into the larders shortly before being cooked on the Friday and Saturday fish-days.
    Just to the west of the larder lay the wet larder (no. 32), where the fresh fish was probably kept for almost immediate use. Most of the sea-fish was provided by Thomas Hewyt of Hythe in Kent, to whom a contract had been awarded by the officers of the green-cloth. 7 He would send the fish up from the coast in panniers slung from the sides of pack-horses, led by a servant who also carried a note of its prices. The most expensive fish were bought individually, a halibut costing 2d, a John Dory 12d, and porpoises, not above one horseload, 13s 4d; the prices of larger ones were agreed with the clerks comptroller. The other fish were bought by the ‘seam’, a very practical measure since it represented a single horse-load:
1 seam of pilchards
6s
1 seam of herrings
9s
1 seam of mixed conger, cod, whiting and thornback
10s
if no conger or cod in seam
6s
1 seam of plaice
10s
1 seam of mullet, turbot and bass
13s
    Freshwater fish was brought to the palace by purveyors such as Robert Parker and George Hill, who provided the following at these agreed rates: 8
Length
Pike, alive
18–21 in (46–53cm)
14d
bream
16–18 in (40–46cm)
30d
carp
16–18m (40–46cm)
48d
perch
9–12in (23–30cm)
3d
trout
14–17in (35–43cm)
8d
chub
16 in (40cm) or more
14d
roach, large
10in (25cm) or more
1d
roach, small
7–10in (17.5–2.5cm)
¼d
Weight
eels
3lb (1350g)
10d
panniers of crab and lobster
100lb (45kg)
96d
salmon, fresh and calver, by
agreement with the clerk comptroller
    In addition, fish were kept in ponds extending from the front of the King’s apartments at Hampton Court, across towards the Thames. These are now drained, but the site is still called the Pond Gardens.
    Having been checked and recorded by the sergeant and clerk of the larder, the clerk of the kitchen and the clerk comptroller would presumably supervise the cutting of the ‘fees’ of the fish – for the master cooks had all the salmons’ tails, the heads of turbot, halibut, purpoise and so forth. 9 The fish would then be given to the cooks so that they could prepare them for that day’s meals.

    Next to the larder lay the boiling house (no. 26), staffed by four yeomen and two junior servants and supervised by the sergeant of the larder, who was charged to ensure that ‘the Beef be put to the lead every morning in due time, soe that it may be thorough boyled when it shall be served’. 10
    At Hampton Court a lead, or copper boiler, was installed in the boiling house in September 1531. 11 It was probably coated with tin inside, like the boiling vessels listed in the inventory of all equipment in the palace’s kitchens drawn up for the Commonwealth in 1659, and like the copper pans used in any modern restaurant kitchen. (Without this tinning, the copper is attacked by the acids in the food, dissolving into it, spoiling the taste and eventually causing poisoning.) Early in the morning the lead would be filled with water – it probably had its own supply on tap from a cistern full of spring water in the rooms above. Faggots or similar fast-burning timber would then be lit and fed into the long firebox underneath, which had raised firebars to ensure that the fuel burned as fiercely as possible. From here the flames played directly on to the base of the copper and then were drawn up flues at the back of it and forwards around the upper parts of both sides, to ensure that they made maximum contact with the huge cauldron before being carried away up the chimney.
    Although Hampton Court’s original copper does not survive, the dimen sions of the surrounding masonry and furnace arch show that it must have held around 80 gallons (364 litres), which would have given it the capacity to boil