Compiled in a notebook measuring 8 X 12 1/2 inches, this English recipe book comprises 185 written pages and includes two indexes at the rear, “Medicine” (10 pages) and “Cookery” (13 pages). In four hands, the book records culinary and medical recipes in use among the eighteenth-century English peerage, including Calves Head Hash, Snake Water, Medicine Against the Plague, and Oyl for Evil Forces.
The original author of the book was Dorothea Wentworth, of Woolsey Hall. She passed the book to her granddaughter, Anna Maria Bold (1733-1813), daughter of MP Peter Bold and heiress of Bold Hall, a transfer that is recorded on the book’s second leaf: Dorothea Wentworth. Her Booke. 1700. This Booke I give to my granddaughter Dorothea Wentworth Jany '6th 1724. Anna Maria Bold subsequently gave the book to her niece, Anna Maria Paten (1760-?) whose father, Thomas Patten, was a scion of the Patten family, of Bank Hall. This transaction was witnessed by Anna Maria Bold's sister, Everilda, and is attested to by inscriptions and signatures on the first leaf of the book.
