Grovewood Daintymaid Kitchens
Richard,
Thank you very much for taking the time to photograph this wonderful brochure, I will have to pop round with a scanner one of these days
One thing that always strikes me with these old brochures (and indeed when I look at some even older American ones) how little kitchens have changed over the years - at least in this country since the mid/late 1960s. Furnishing and decoration fashions change, but the fundamentals remain pretty much unchanged. Anyway, on to comments:
I believe the single oven shown in replies 3 & 7 is a Westinghouse. Note also in reply 3 that the Kenwood dishwasher now sports a front Rinseaid reservoir were the older pictures posted over in Imperial do not.
You might also have noticed in the Imperial thread that the Kenwood dishwasher is quite small, although in fact its pretty much similar to the "squared off" Colston models that were its main competitor at the time. You can see how neatly it fits in to the cabinets shown in reply 3, which gives a clue to the reason for the size. At the time the standard cabinet module was 21" x 21" rather than the metric and larger 24" x 24" (60x60cm). Which also explains why most freestanding cookers (ranges) and fridges where 21" wide - something that, to an extent, still persists to this very day although the larger metric standard module was adopted nearly 40 years ago. Likewise UK built washers at the time tended to be shallower front to back than what we are now accustomed to.
In reply 4 you can see the (built like a tank) Cannon gas cooker which had a eye level foldaway grill (broiler). A few months ago Rob (Aquarius1984) did a thread about his later version (actually I don't think the re-style was that much later than the date of this brochure) of this same cooker, which does look a bit dated, but then the design had been around for about 10 years at this stage. It was not until a couple of years later that we actually saw fridges and freezers specifically designed for building-in in the UK (although they did exist in Europe) so another couple of years (and from memory only one brand - Tricity) in so the fridge shown in reply 4 is a fee standing model that has been built in, it looks to me like a Philips going by the handle.
Onto reply 6 and the "close up for Al". Richard, particular thanks for this for you have shed light on another forgotten item. The stainless steel finish oven is a Tricity double oven, and one of the most common sold here - helped in that the styling did not change that much over the first 10 or so years of its production. No, its the fridge beside it which is getting me excited (I really MUST get out more!). Its another free standing fridge, this time a Tricity Vogue. Actually this is quite an old model for the date of the brochure, as the range had been updated earlier in the 1970s and indeed I think the Vogue range was dropped by this time. I have not seen a picture of one of these for maybe 40 years, so great to see it again. Also when I look at it, the controls for the hob are older than I would have expected for this period too, so perhaps they re-used some equipment they already had.
This was a good way to start a Friday morning!
Al
