Much of the material acquired by the museum over the years is made up of everyday domestic items. Individually they are of great interest, but it is together that they begin to offer a broader insight to past lives. Among the items of furniture are some interesting 17th century tables, and a bible box. Broadly contemporary are the tankards, stoneware bottles and the jugs called Bellarmines which were used for importing beer from Germany. All these were common in the alehouses of the 17th and 18th centuries. Beside an old fireplace brought from Hatter Street is an impressive array of cookery items including various spits, oven cauldron, bellows and other paraphernalia of hearthside cooking. From the 19th century, mass-production leads to a much wider range of items around the home; painted and transfer-decorated china, for example, would have been avidly collected by those who could have afforded it. A dazzling mixture of personal possessions - from tinder boxes to walking sticks - all offer clues to past fashions and foibles of domestic life.