The Buttery, no it’s not where the butter was made but where the butts or barrels of ale and wine were stored under the watchful eye of the butler.

Everyone except babies would have drunk ale in Medieval and Tudor times. (Ale is like beer but without hops. Hops started to be added during the Tudor period they gave the beer a different flavour and made it last longer). Children as young as three may have drunk several pints a day, but this would have been what was called small ale which was nothing like as strong as beers today.

People drank ale because the water was polluted with sewage, dead animals etc. Diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery (bad diarrhoea) were common after drinking water from rivers and many wells.

When ale or beer is made the water is boiled as part of the brewing process, this would kill the bacteria making it safe to drink. Alcohol is also toxic to most water borne pathogens, so this too contributed to its being safer. Although the people at this time didn’t understand why it was better to drink ale than water they knew that in practice it was a wise thing to do.