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House and home

maiden, clothes-horse or something else?

(140 Posts)
frankie74 Tue 26-Feb-19 12:33:29

The wooden hinged, floor-standing clothes drier/airer that was in our childhood home was called the maiden. I'm wondering if that was one of our mum's made-up expressions (there were several!) What did others call it? Was it a name local to NW England?

dragonfly46 Wed 27-Feb-19 08:49:08

Mum was a Londener and Dad a Yorkshireman and it was a clothes horse. It didn't look like a horse though!

Nanny123 Wed 27-Feb-19 09:58:37

Always called it the “airer”

GrandmaPam Wed 27-Feb-19 10:01:51

Definitely 'maiden' for us too "up north" grin

jeanblew Wed 27-Feb-19 10:06:47

Maiden in Wigan.

Izzywizzy Wed 27-Feb-19 10:07:08

We called it a maiden and my mum still does but I now call it the clothes airer. We came from Cheshire

Amee Wed 27-Feb-19 10:08:30

Clothes horse, but also know maiden (grew up in South)

washing line

sue01 Wed 27-Feb-19 10:29:06

Clothes horse here. A rickety old wooden thing held together with strips of what looked like canvas. My Mother was from Somerset.

maryhoffman37 Wed 27-Feb-19 10:29:47

We, SE, called it the clothes horse. Now I have an airer above the Aga, which is called Gnu.

inishowen Wed 27-Feb-19 10:35:29

My mum was from Liverpool and it was the clothes maiden. Here in Ireland it's clothes horse. Mum also talked about the airing cupboard, whereas here it's the hot press.

annab275 Wed 27-Feb-19 10:35:39

I have a pulley which is brilliant. I can't think of a house I have lived in without one. But we shall be on the move soon, and I was wondering if I need a tumble dryer or a clothes horse.

Overthehills Wed 27-Feb-19 10:41:04

Clothes horse.
Pulley over the Rayburn.
Clothes line.
Hotpress.
I’m Irish.

Daisyboots Wed 27-Feb-19 10:41:32

Londoner here when we were children my Mum had a clothes horse which was great for making dens. When i fot married I had a concertina style aier which fitten on top of an electric heater to dry the clothes. When I moved to Norfolk therewas an airer on a pulley from the ceiling over the central heating boiler in the utility room which the previous owner called a maiden. Now I call my floor standing ones airers which most people in Portugal use to dry their wasing outside and that is called an estendal. I do have a washing line and airer though.

GabriellaG54 Wed 27-Feb-19 10:49:34

A maiden was a fold out or free standing clothes dryer/airer and the slatted overhead pulley operated thingy in the kitchen was called a rack in my Liverpool childhood.

libra10 Wed 27-Feb-19 10:49:54

frankie74 I'm also from the North West, and we called this large contraption a maiden. Coincidentally, my name is also frankie.

Nanny27 Wed 27-Feb-19 10:54:14

My mum (South) had a wooden concertina one and tended to overload it on wet days when she couldn't use the washing line. I can still hear her horrified shriek "the airer's fallen over!" we all rushed to the kitchen to rescue wet clothes from the floor.

123coco Wed 27-Feb-19 10:55:04

I still call it a clothes horse!! Didn’t know it wasn’t anymore grin

Gaggi3 Wed 27-Feb-19 11:00:33

We had a clothes horse (Essex) and a washing line with pulley in the garden rigged up by my Father. Can remember him pinning Catherine Wheels to the wooden posts on bonfire night.

blondenana Wed 27-Feb-19 11:02:50

Clothes horse for the wooden one that folded out, the one on a pulley hanging from the ceiling was called a creel,in our house,[Yorkshire]

GabriellaG54 Wed 27-Feb-19 11:04:20

This is what we called a clothes horse.
We had a polished wood one in the bathroom for towels and one in each bedroom to put your removed clothes on.

GabriellaG54 Wed 27-Feb-19 11:05:39

Clothes horse

4allweknow Wed 27-Feb-19 11:07:11

Clothes horse but really didn't have one in house when young, it was the pulley in the kitchen.

GreenGran78 Wed 27-Feb-19 11:07:27

We had a 'maiden' (Lancashire) which was firstly a wooden three-piece folding arrangement, replaced by a wooden, then a metal/plastic concertina-type one. We also had 'the clothes rack', which pulled up to the ceiling. lastly we had a fire-guard which kept the children safe, and was also used as a dryer. This effectively meant that all the heat from the fire was blocked by wet clothes, so we hated it.
I have a modern concertina rack, but we call it the 'clothes airer' now.

justanovice Wed 27-Feb-19 11:09:47

Clothes maiden years ago here in Cumbria, or Lancashire as it was then.

Daisyboots Wed 27-Feb-19 11:11:54

Gabriella G we call that a towel rack and had it in the bathwoom.

ReadyMeals Wed 27-Feb-19 11:14:33

Definitely a clothes-horse. And the traditional ones double as a tent frame for kids to put a blanket over and play in.