What's the oldest thing in your house?

A small cotton table mat crocheted by my grandmother (1881-1962) so must be at least 50 to 60 years old. Plan to pass it on to my niece as I don't have a daughter to appreciate it.

I am another with a big bowl of small fossils and several larger ones (incuding DH & I) on display.

That apart we are 'old' people rather than new; house, 1467, and most of the furniture 19th century.

Apart from some fossils the oldest thing is a child's bonnet belonging to my gt. gt. grandmother. Not sure how much longer the fabric will last although I have taken advice from the V & A. Also not sure why I am bothering as next generation will not want it!

A skeleton clock dating back to the early 1800s and me.

An embossed metal case which my Dsil bought at a sort of auction in an Egyptian palace while she was living in Cairo. We couldn't guess what it was, but she told us it was a case for holding pens/quills etc, and they wore these tied round their waists apparently.

Apart from my Welsh fossil Didymograpti which are about the same age as Yggdrasil's trilobite, I have a tiny toy stoneware finely decorated jug I found on the Thames foreshore at Tower Wharf. The Museum of London dated at as 14th-16th century, of such high quality it had to be made in Germany.

When we were restoring part of the house we found an ancient pair of children's shoes, probably from the sixteenth or seventeenth century. We photographed them and sealed them back into the wall, as they were probably put there originally to bring good luck.

Definitely me!

I have kept a small piece of glass, shaped like the base of a glass tumbler, I found many years ago on a atlantic beach in the south west.Engraved in this base is a star.Wasn't the Titanic a ship of the White Star Line.? I have often wondered whether this was from that wreck and had been washed up by storms onto that particular beach after all those years.

A collection of Carnival Glass and 3 Green glass paperweights filled with air bubbles.

My Husband
he is 15 years older that me.

My daughter recently married and I gave her five of the plates that had been given to her gt-gt granny in 1860. Brought to NZ by granny in 1919 when she married her wounded ANZAC sheep farmer. I also have a collection of antiquities - Roman, Persian, "Celtic" and mediaeval - and some neolithic stone and flint tools.

I have a Victorian Firescreen which I love to bits, if we are talking about things we still use then I have a trifle serving dish, and a rolling pin, both of which I bought when we got married(1974).
I use both of them often

Oh! I also have on my desk some (lava?) ( Magma)? which I picked up when walking up Vesuvio :-), incidentally that is where I want my ashes scattered.

An Elizabeth 1st silver shilling , I don`t think it has much value but is lovely to look at . A carved snuff box shoe made around 1800 by a seafaring ancestor . Lots of fossils collected over the years . A blue and white decorated pot baby bottle , no idea of the date but it looks old .

I have a grandfather clock and bookcase bureau of about 1780. Such a pity the children don't like brown furniture!!

I have an old iron bread shovel made for use with a proper bread oven. It looks as if it was made in the 17th century. I also have a wooden yoke, used by milkmaids to carry buckets of milk. These things came from the barn in the farm where I lived during my childhood.

Husband?

We have a pottery cockerel from China from 800 bc because my partner asked for something older than him!

A beautiful copper kettle from early Victorian times which must be unique in that it has never been used. A little model of a steam train, carved from coal - possibly millions of years old (the coal, not the model) A glass bowl given to my mother at her wedding in 1936, belonging to a lady in her nineties who had been given it at her wedding which must have been around 1860. A Victorian coin worn by an uncle on his watch chain - he died around 1930 and quite how I ended up with the coin I don't know. So - nothing very old at all, I fear!

Ammonites here, that my children picked up on the Cleveland coast years ago. I came across them in a box in our cellar recently, and one was completely covered by some sort of silver growth, a bit like the crystals we used to grow from kits. It's on my kitchen windowsill now, cleaned up, but the stuff keeps coming back, and is eating into the surface. If this was a film, I'd be waking up one morning to the ammonite split into two and a baby raptor lurking behind the kitchen door....

Apart from the creepy fossils, it'd be our 1797 2d piece.

A large piece of petrified wood from FIL farm. Estimated to be at least a million years old.

Haven't got it any more, but when I was small my dad had a 1/3 of a 1/4d coin - no idea how old it was, but certainly interesting and must have been pretty old, since otherwise surely even a long time ago it wouldn't have bought much.

Husband!!!!

When my mother died her older sister gave me my maternal grandmother's engagement and wedding rings. I never knew my grandmother as she died when my mother was about 5 years old. Her sister then brought her up. My mother was the only one of four sisters who married. The rings must be from the early 1900's and the engagement ring has my grandmother's name engraved on the inside. She must have had big hands and fingers like me as the rings fit perfectly. They are my most treasured possessions as I don't own anything else of value.