My Nan always called it..

Traditionally, in large houses with servants, the scullery was a small room off the kitchen where the dirty jobs of washing, washing up, vegetable peeling etc. took place. My nanna had the kitchen, where we sat during the day. There was an old fashioned range in there but it wasn't used for cooking, just for heating the room. The back kitchen had a gas cooker, sink and wooden draining board. There was almost always a big tin bath with washing steeping and a poss tub too. So, the back kitchen and scullery were one and the same in that house. The names were used interchangeably. It was a big, three story house on the main road through Bootle but several of my mother's brothers and sisters lived 'at home' back then, even after they were married and had children of their own, so my nanna and grandad had no best sitting room until they'd all left home. When we visited there at Christmas, my sisters and I used to try to stay awake on New Year's Eve to hear the ship's and tugboats blowing their hooters at midnight down on the Mersey.

I think Meandashy is using press to mean cupboard.

I thought a 'press' was a Scottish term for a cupboard of some sort. (I've read Mollie Weir's wonderful autobiographies)

We had a kitchen - large room, with walk in cupboard, large wooden table in centre, sofa and chairs and radio etc, and a scullery with the cooker, sink and some small cupboards with enamel tops. Our front room was at the front of the house and never, ever used!

Kitchen with scullery with copper and leading off a walk in larder. There was also a butler's pantry. Small room just containing a large sink with rows of shelves. (no butler)

I have a very small kitchen (couldn't swing a cat) but its saving grace is a fab walk in pantry. Some of my neighbours have knocked theirs out, but I never would. Its fantastic. DH has shelved it from top to bottom and I keep all sorts in there.

When my grandfather died we moved to live with my grandmother, in large house now worth £2.5 million (London suburb) The bell board was still there and working, we drove my grandmother mad by ringing them frequently. There was a huge hall, a drawing room and dining room, good sized genuine cloakroom (pegs on both sides of the room, with a large loo off it. The kitchen was a big square room with an understairs scullery with separate sink. There was a shelved larder (with meat safe) and then a small hall leading to outside with another much smaller loo and a coal room.

Upstairs there were three large bedrooms, a bathroom almost as big as the dining room, and then on the second floor another attic room used for storage, though I imagine it is now is another bedroom. There was a tiny door at the end of this leading to the rest of the area under the roof, used for storage, and we used to climb through this and hide, pretending to be in the Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe'

That makes me sound very privileged, but we moved in there because my father earned little money as an insurance clerk and I can remember my mother tying her shoes with string because she couldn't afford shoelaces. It was not a success, major personality clashes!

One nan lived in a terraced house with a living room- where we ate, sat and played cards, there was a big black fireplace with an oven, but the scullery off it was where the sink and the cooker were. The front room was only used on special occasions although we were sent to sit in it and play quietly when the grown ups were playing cards on a Sunday night. Even when it was freezing!
Other nan moved into a prefab great astonishment because there was a fitted kitchen with---- a FRIDGE!

I was brought up in a small country cottage, sitting room with coal fire, small kitchen with a Raeburn (poor man's AGA) & a pantry complete with meat safe & window with mesh instead of glass. Stairs came off the kitchen to two bedrooms. Outside loo.

This didn't change until I was 11 (1966) when my parents bought the barn attached to the cottage & extended so we had large kitchen, a fridge for the first time & a pantry for storing tins etc. Dining room & sitting room. Bathroom, what a luxury & 3 bedrooms.

We had a large garden, front & side with shrubs, flowers & lawn & back garden full of fruit & veg. I loved my home.

I think its a shame that words have changed their meanin g and that people giggle at once innocent words like glory hole, muff, beaver, pussy and even knob What can i call the round door handles? You have to be so careful what you say these days and it annoys me.

I loved my grandparents Edwardian detached house in West London. It had a dining room and sitting room either side of the front door, a glass door through to the back where there was a large kitchen with a range cooker, huge pine dresser with a knife sharpener and some other lovely Victorian/Edwardian furniture, plus the bell board. It was so warm and cosy.

On the other side of the passage was the scullery which I hated, it was cold and had a concrete floor and a sink with a huge wooden plate rack. So wet stuff was done here, next to it was a larder and I think another loo which was freezing.

Out side was a fairly small but gorgeous walled garden, I remember the hollyhocks, and now at last after more than 50 years I have succeeded with these lovely flowers! It was surrounded by chestnut trees. How I would so love to have that house here in France, but in our garden.

It was known in SE as the privvy

The outside toilet was the netty.

My Nan had a scullery and a front room, freezing cold, for company only, which never happened. She was originally from the Fens then moved south in service, called jigsaw puzzles zigzaws and chimneys chimblies.

I recently mentioned the word glory hole and the room went silent. Then giggles from everyone and my daughter said, 'It has a different meaning nowadays' she told me not to look it up on google. Took me ages to figure out what it meant.

My Nana, in Darlington, had a back kitchen in her small two bed terraced house. It opened onto the back yard where the closet was. It housed a large mangle, a table, the 'stove' and the sink.A long shelf above the table was for the pots, pans and basins. At the back was the pantry with a marble shelf and a hanging meat cupboard.

Grandma, in Wimbledon, had a kitchen similar to that of Nana except no mangle but a wash boiler and a plumbed in bath with lift up formica lid! Above the bath was the airer and on rainy wash days the lid was opened and the parafin heater went in the bath to dry the washing on the airer. It caused a fire when a stocking floated off the airer and was set alight by the parafin heater!

My nan called it 'the scullery'

My grandma lived in the North East of England. There were rows and rows of terraced houses with the front doors grouped in twos. One door led to a bottom flat and the other to the top floor. You opened my grandma's door and had to walk up a flight of stairs to her main room. There was a tiny scullery off that and 1bedroom. The people in the downstairs flat still had a huge range in the main room so obviously, originally, the cooking was done there and not in the scullery! The toilet was down the back stairs in the yard and was shared by the occupants of both flats. Everytime the people downstairs used it my grandma would go down and give everything a good scrub as she didn't approve of their lack of hygiene. They were a family consisting of both parents and 2 children, a girl and a boy, all in a 1 bedroomed flat with an outside toilet!

I still dream, sometimes, that I'm back in that flat, which has now been knocked down. It was the happiest place I've ever know.

I heard of 'back kitchen' when I visited 'up north' for the first time. The first house I remember as a child had a kitchen and a pantry OUTSIDE! So regardless of the weather out my mum went to get the food. When we moved the pantry was indoors but we never had a scullery.

Yes, I remember the glory hole...the place for anything and everything. When I first got married in the 1960's my gran came to see our first home. Oh, you have a glory hole too, my gran exclaimed when she found the cupboard under the stairs. The thing I remember with horror about gran's house was the outside loo. There were sheets of torn newspaper for toilet paper, and a six inch gap under the wooden door. The local cat always squeezed in under the door and sat looking at you. Memories eh?

I wonder if this is a " northern " expression. I was born and brought up in the north and we always said back kitchen. It had a walk - in pantry, a built in laundry copper were you had to light a fire underneath of it. A small sink and a cooker. The stairs to our bedrooms was off the back kitchen.The front room were we had the table and chairs and comfy seats had a big Yorkshire Range fireplace. You could actually cook on that and I believe many people did before they had a cooker installed in the " back " kitchen, hence I think were the expression may have come from. My husband from the very south of England found some of these northern words and expressions ( of which there were many) both puzzling and hilarious in equal measures.

My granny kept apples in the box room, cider apples I think. It smelt divine!

When I was growing up we lived in a terrace of small Georgian houses. There was a hole in the front step covered by a metal lid. The coal man delivered a couple of sackfuls through this hole and it dropped into the cellar. I suppose it saved him walking right round and then through the house to deliver it. I never dare stand on the metal coal hole lid in case I fell six feet down into the cellar!!

Sorry to lower the tone but a great aunt of mine did complain once about the mess left in her back passage by the coal man

Like you silver my gran rented a small terraced house, (probably called a cottage now!) and we lived with her, with a cousin and aunt right up until the war, when another aunt and cousin moved in and we moved out. She had a scullery, and there was a cupboard there which was under the stairs where the coal was kept. We also had mice in abundance, so a cat was a necessity. Food and crockery were kept in a large cupboard and in the corner was the boiler which was lit every Monday, for the family wash. The cooker was in another corner. The loo was outside, and we had just the one tap for cold water. A small room for us all to use - there was a lovely range there in the winter, and of course the inevitable front room, which nobody ever used, until she was unable to walk up the stairs when it became her bedroom.

We had a larder, a walk in cupboard off the kitchen that my father put shelves in and mum kept tinned goods etched. Our fridge was kept in there. Our chest freezer was in the kitchen and used as a work surface. Our bathroom was off the kitchen! And freezing! The toilet was outside all bar a drafty wooden door (essentially in a lean to porch) full of creepy crawlies and ice in the winter!
My grandparents had a parlour I don't remember being in and a room for every day use.
I live in Scotland & some people still have a 'press' and a worktop is a bunker!