Dwarf Knob

[CK]

Can anybody tell me what this mini door knob is called?
And where I could get more of them?
It locks the door from the inside of the drawing room and can only be opened from the inside.
From around the year 1820. This is the only one that survived in the house; there were two others - where I'd like to install new ones.
But I can't find this type of thing anywhere.

Any ideas?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

CK - I have no idea as to the name, but I think you have probably sent the site's traffic through the roof and given Penners a heart-attack as he is simultaneously flooded by a host of possible double-entendres!*

* or doubles-entendres - we never did decide which was correct

 

[ian]

What you need to search for is "thumb turn" or rack bolt knob.

 

[Schoolmarm]

It sounds scary though if I have read it correctly. Locks from the inside but can only be undone from the outside?

 

[Tom]

It sounds scary though if I have read it correctly. Locks from the inside but can only be undone from the outside?

No, it locks and unlocks from the inside

 

[Schoolmarm]

I thought it was odd.

 

[Pford75]

We have one of these on the inside of our Morning Room....but not on any other rooms. Wonder what was so secretive in these rooms that they required locking from the inside? :?

 

[Flyfisher]

Assignations with the maids?

 

[JoceAndChris]

8)

I have one too, just the same - I've wondered why, but suspect the Georgians were just obsessed with locks, and Georgian Britain was rife with crime. Every door and drawer here has a lock to it - and I've read that locking up time was a huge evening ritual. I suppose everyone (nearly) lived with servants - even if you were a servant. I'm sure the gamekeeper who we speculate lived here had a servant - a servant he didnt trust much, and the possibility (as now) of ne'er-do-wells popping up from the town.

It's hard for us to imagine in our throw away society just how valuable everything was, and how deprived of basic things the poor were.

Here's a little taste of crime from Lisa Picard's "Dr Johnson's London":

"An old way of robbing was revived in the Poultry by a boy in a baker's basket [carried on the head] who snatched off the hats of several gentlemen before he was detected... not only the hat but the wig went too, and wigs were expensive"

 

[christianb]

Here's a little taste of crime from Lisa Picard's "Dr Johnson's London":

A very good book. Highly recommended.

 

[Feltwell]

We have one of these on the inside of our Morning Room....but not on any other rooms. Wonder what was so secretive in these rooms that they required locking from the inside? :?

I don't know, but from the look of that picture finding out "whodunnit" from the fingerprints won't require too much detective power :wink:

 

[LadyArowana]

I don't know, but from the look of that picture finding out "whodunnit" from the fingerprints won't require too much detective power :wink:

Charlie Sheen, no need to even check the prints.