Osborne Restoration

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.

  • 1894 Belle Portable with water boiler at home

    And here is the Belle Portable back at home. I’m pleased to see the fire has already been lit and a cork popped to celebrate!

  • 1894 Belle Portable with water boiler

    I’ve not had a chance to post much recently as I’ve been extremely busy in the workshop but here’s a particualy nice Belle Portable that came in for restoration recently and is now back with its owner after some extensive work. It’s an early model Belle with cast iron water boiler. It dates from around 1894 and must have had some serious use over its life as the firebox was quite a state!
    The base plate had two large cracks in it, all the firebox cheeks were damaged and one required renewal, the firebox door was missing as was the pintle, there was no tap for the boiler, the back and sides were rotten as was the oven… you get the idea!

  • Näfveqvarns Bruk parlour stove

    Here’s another one all ready to be shipped off to its new home. I really like this stove and don’t expect I’ll see another one like it. In case your wondering its feet have been stowed away inside for shipping!

  • Antique Ideal Domestic Boiler

    Some of you may recall a photo of an large Ideal Domestic water boiler that I picked up a short while ago. It was in a bit of a state when I received it but had previously been used to heat a three story furniture shop in North Wales. Here are the before and after pictures of it;

  • Tyring the market cart wheels

    We got stuck into the final round of tyring last weekend. So far Colin and his brother has restored two Oxfordshire bow rave wagons, one timber wagon, a seed drill and a market cart. That means over the last year or so we have tyred sixteen wheels and made a felloes for all of them along with many spokes although all the original naves have been retained.
    The last one was Stephan’s market cart built in 1900. He discovered that beneath the blue paintwork it had in fact originally been black with scarlet pin stripping almost everywhere. That certainly tried his patience!
    We got started on an already blistering hot Sunday and then proceeded to light a fire. You can’t tell from the photo but the heat coming off that fire is insufferable and means you have to be quick sharp with the tyre irons if you want to lift the tyre away with loosing your hair!
    The tyres were a tight fit and wouldn’t have gone on if I hadn’t have forged up some tyre dogs the week before.
    All that is left now is to finish painting it and to find some brass lamps to go with it. If anyone out there has any that will suit please get in touch!

  • Not a bad day for it!

    Was out in the forge today so thought I’d share what it looks like in the summer. I’m making some tyre dogs to help with getting some iron tyres onto a freshly restored market cart this weekend.

  • Does your grate look like this?!

    I’ve got a new batch of cast iron grates coming into stock soon. These will fit all Belle Portable cooking ranges as well as many early Guidwife ranges as well as many others. Dimensions will be posted in the ‘Shop’ section in the coming weeks. These grates are a quaility article cast in the Uk completely unlike the poor quality Chinese cast iron available from many outlets. These grates will offer years of trouble free service.
    Fire stones also available for all ranges upon request.

  • Coats Portal Sapperton Tunnel

    Rach and I were heading back from looking at a boat nr Wolvercoat when we decided to take a pit stop and came across Coate’s Portal of the Sapperton Tunnel. Construction began in late 1783 and was completed in 1789, significant restoration works were carried out in 1777.
    The feasibility of the restoration of the tunel has been verified despite significant damage occuring inside over the past century. At present however the canal is in poor order and the restoration works of the 70’s are showing signs of age. It is a nice spot though. Hopefully one day the Thames and Severn canal will be back in working order.
    There’s a good article on the tunnel here;

    http://www.cotswoldcanals.net/sapperton-canal-tunnel.php

  • Steam Hammer!

    Could resist getting my photo with this steam hammer we came across in a motorway services (much to Rachel’s dismay).

  • This probably isn’t interesting for most out there but I’m right pleased. I managed to take a day off work last week to attend to my poor old bench that I’ve had for years now. I built it before I started playing with ranges and it certainly hasn’t coped well having them sat on top of it for days on end! So here’s the (nearly) completed new bench (nearly) ready for action. Now I just have to figure out an easier way of getting the ranges on top…