Here we have a nice little “Nipper” stove ready to head back home. Due to their compact size these stoves were used in all sorts of place from caravans, boats, cabins and offices. At 21″ wide they can fit almost anywhere
Category: ‘Nipper’ Stove
The ‘Nipper’ stove as it was fondly dubbed, remained in production from circa 1900-1940s by the ‘Caledonian Stove and Iron Works’. It is an unusually small stove at just 21″ wide and for this reason had a special market. Boats, Yachts, Caravans, Cabins and even Camping was the intended use for this little range and it certainly found favor with many.
They are compact in size and weight but due to this do have quite a small oven and grate area.
They can be found in vintage caravans and shepherds huts and other applications where the facility to cook was required in addition to a heat source.
The early examples had some nice moldings to the panels and door while the later types were very plain and smooth in appearance. They were available in bare iron or vitreous enameled and could be set directly on a hearth or stand on legs.
In later years the Nipper has found its way into the back cabins of narrowboats although they were really too small to find favor with working boatmen in the day.
During the 1980’s the Nipper had a second wind and was reproduced with some changes and renamed the ‘Premier’ but manufacture of these stoves and since stopped. They were for all intents and purposes a pretty poor copy of an excellent little stove.
Both the Nipper and Premier have since found favor with a great deal of people and have become very sought after.
Osborne Restoration will be manufacturing a high quality replica of the Nipper stove later this year. We also offer a full restoration service for original Nipper and Premier stoves and can supply spare parts for both.
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Stunning Hostess No35 for showmans van
They might be a lot of work but these brilliant little Hostess range really are a thing to behold. These ranges would have been fitted to the vast majority of travelling wagons and van for both the showmen and gypsies of the late 19th/ early 20th century. This examples dates from circa 1920 and now restoration is complete it will be returned to its original van
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“Nipper”!
Here is a little “Nipper” that came in this week for restoration. It is having a new top plate and new flue box as well as the more general restoration work. The cream mottled enamel is in pretty good order and will be kept. This is a very nice example of a rare sought after stove and it was found at a car boot sale for £25 would you beleive!
Don’t forget O.J.Osborne & Co manufacture brand new “Nipper” stoves and they are available for £1500 in black lead finish. Enamelled finish is also available but please get in touch for a quote.
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Patterns for replica fiddle rail standards
On the left here you can see an original fiddle rail standard from the back cabin stove of the working narrowboat ‘Dane’ dating from 1909. These rail standards were used on a huge number of working boats throughout the 19th and 20th century. On the right is the first split pattern turned from beech by Charlie Watts, a very talented Somerset based wood turner. These more to come and then we’ll be into casting the first batches of these standards for our replica Guidwife and Larbert back cabin stoves.
If you’d like to get in touch with Charlie please visit his website here; http://www.wattsturning.co.uk/
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New workshop
Well we have finally begun the move to the new (much larger) workshop so thank you to all those who have been patient during this time. You can expect big changes to the website, services and products over the coming months with some exciting new developments like the manufacture of very high quality replica ‘Nipper’ stoves, ‘Hostess’ ranges and authentic Larbert and Guidwife ‘Back cabin stoves’!
I will post with more details on this as time goes on.
All the best.
Olly
