Here is a customers Belle Portable in the final stages of the restoration. As you can see the majority of the top plate is new, the right hand side top plate insert, and both smoke box shells. The original parts that were in good condition have been retained. I can supply new castings for most cooking ranges so do get in touch if your range is damaged or has missing parts.
Category: Belle Portable Ranges
‘Belle Portable’ ranges are the most common of the portable ranges and were in production from the late 19th century to the mid 20th. They were manufactured by Jones and Campbell, of Falkirk at their ‘Torwood foundry’ near by to the ‘Larbert foundry’ of Dobbie Frobes Ltd where Dermont Campbel was once the cashier.
The company was established in 1887 and the first cupola was blown in and tapped in 1888. The first ‘Belle Portable’ design was registered in 1894 and these early examples have several defining characteristics including decorative fretwork on their trivets and rounded ends to the strap hinges on the oven door.
Later ranges had ‘Removable ovens’ with brass screws fixing in the front panel to prevent them seizing. However they are invariably always seized!
‘Belle Portable’ ranges can be found in all sorts of shapes and sizes and have proven themselves to be of a very robust design.
O.J.Osborne & Co manufacture many spare parts for these ranges and always keep unrestored examples in stock. Customers restorations are taken on and can be shipped anywhere in the Uk.
-
Belle Portable- Old and new
-
Belle Portable flue boxes
I’ve got four Belle Portable ranges on the bench at the moment, here’s their flue boxes in various conditions.
-
Restored range installed at Gressenhall farm and workhouse museum
I was really pleased to received this photo recently. It shows the 1885 Utilis range that I restored for Gressenhall farm and workhouse museum in Norfolk.
It was a very involved project as someone had previously ‘restored’ the range and made a terrible job of it, damaging many of the parts in the process. I had to make several patterns so new parts could be cast in iron to replace parts that had been damaged or worn out.
This range has been installed so it can be used properly with the internal masonry flues reinstated. It will be used to show visitors how people cooked in the 19th century.
I hope I have a chance to get up to Norfolk soon to see how they’re getting on with it!
-
Belle Portable Range for sale
…and here’s another one for sale. This time its a Belle Portable range fully restored and ready for service. Click on the ‘Shop’ tab above for more details.
-
Belle Portable nearing completion
I’ve nearly finished this nice little Belle Portable. There’s still a few small jobs to do but its quite a different story to how it looked just last week! (photo 2)
-
Another Belle Portable range in for restoration
This range is fairly typical of the kind that come here for restoration. On the outside they look tired and tatty but in reasonable order but inside they are a mess. It is for this reason that I am so diligent with my restorations as a range that appears to be in fair aesthetic condition could (and probably is) in very poor working condition. It’s sometimes easy to forget that these ranges are 100+ years old and for much of that time they may have had a coal fire inn them for 12hrs of the day!
-
Name plates
I just got the new name plates back from the foundry. They have been cast in brass and will be polished and then rivited to each of my restorations. They have come out great and I’m really pleased with them!
-
Beetonette repairs
As you can see from the first picture the internals of this Beetonette were absolutely shot! It’s amazing that someone was still using it! Most of the firebox was held together with old stones and bricks and the entire thing was clogged with ash. The entire damper assembly had disappeared so had to be fabricated anew. Likewise only one small section of the RHS firebox was present and the back looked as though it had been hit by a train. The grate is also shot so all of the above as been replaced. The oven has also been replaced as a matter of course as well as the diffuser plate and water boiler.
-
More pattern making
The Beetonette range that’s currently being restored required a new flap to its flue box as you can see from the first pic. The second pic shows the pattern I made and the finished casting fitted to the range. We’re making progress on this one now but it has been a challenge to say the least!
-
Pattern making for a Bodley range
The first patent for a ‘closed’ range was taken out by an Exeter ironfounder named George Bodley. His appliance was named the ‘Bodley range’ or ‘Bodley stove’ and became very popular. Previous to this cooking ranges had an open fire and but Bodley enclosed the fire with an iron plate and made internal flue ways that heated the oven and boiler thus making effective use of the heat provided and thus economising on fuel.
I was asked to restore one of the only remaining Bodley ranges still in existence. It is made rarer still as it is still in its original situation in a large property in Bristol built around 1800.
The top plate had suffered years of abuse and so required renewal. I instructed for the original to be well labelled and kept within the property for historical reference and I set out making patterns for a new one to be cast. Here are some photos of the the old and new.
