001 Small creamery with belt driven single wooden horizontal churn; the image also shows the cooler, between the doorway on the churn. The sign above the door reads “DAIRY SUPPLY CO. LTD, Dairy Engineers, Oxford Street, Belfast”.
002 Detail showing Dairy Supply Co. sign above door in the previous image; DAIRY SUPPLY CO. LTD, Dairy Engineers, Oxford Street, Belfast.
003 Belt driven wooden horizontal churn. Note the steps up to the churn to allow inspection and extraction of the butter. Note also the tap at the side of the churn to allow the butter milk.
004 Butter worker; butter had to be “worked” after churning to remove excess moisture. Few butter workers survive as the process was incorporated into the butter churn, as can be seen by the gearing on side of the churn.
Left: 005 Gearing on an early churn. Right: 006 Gearing on a churn with the butter worker incorporated.
007 Churn, butter worker and cream coolers.
008 Cutaway showing a churn with the butter worker incorporated.
009 Belt driven, end over churns; these type of churns are unusual in a creamery.
010 Creamery interior; note the twenty gallon milk can beside the churn.
011 Interior of a separating station; the cylindrical cooler in the middle foreground was made by the Dairy Engineering Company. The vat on the platform behind the cylinder was for the separated cream.
Detail showing the poster beside the shelving in 011. The poster reads MEADOWS AND PASTURES / Unclear / DROGHEDA / XXX SUPERGRASS / MANURE / Unclear / James M. Beattie.

This is a series of photographs of the interior of small creameries and separating station, probably from around the 1910s or 1920s. Their origins are unclear but it may be that they used in the journal of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. There is no indication of the location of these creameries. [ view full screen ]

full screen view

A catalogue, probably from the mid- to late 1920s from The Condensed Milk Company of Ireland, (CMCI) generally known as “Cleeves”, after its founding family, which set up the business in 1881. By the end of the First World War, the CMCI had become one of the biggest employers in the country. The CMSI went into liquidation in 1927, but the Cleeves name lived on in various guises, the best known of which was “Cleeves Toffee”.

001 Small creamery with belt driven single wooden horizontal churn; the image also shows the cooler, between the doorway on the churn. The sign above the door reads “DAIRY SUPPLY CO. LTD, Dairy Engineers, Oxford Street, Belfast”.
002 Detail showing Dairy Supply Co. sign above door in the previous image; DAIRY SUPPLY CO. LTD, Dairy Engineers, Oxford Street, Belfast.
003 Belt driven wooden horizontal churn. Note the steps up to the churn to allow inspection and extraction of the butter. Note also the tap at the side of the churn to allow the butter milk.
004 Butter worker; butter had to be “worked” after churning to remove excess moisture. Few butter workers survive as the process was incorporated into the butter churn, as can be seen by the gearing on side of the churn.
Left: 005 Gearing on an early churn. Right: 006 Gearing on a churn with the butter worker incorporated.
007 Churn, butter worker and cream coolers.
008 Cutaway showing a churn with the butter worker incorporated.
009 Belt driven, end over churns; these type of churns are unusual in a creamery.
010 Creamery interior; note the twenty gallon milk can beside the churn.
011 Interior of a separating station; the cylindrical cooler in the middle foreground was made by the Dairy Engineering Company. The vat on the platform behind the cylinder was for the separated cream.
Detail showing the poster beside the shelving in 011. The poster reads MEADOWS AND PASTURES / Unclear / DROGHEDA / XXX SUPERGRASS / MANURE / Unclear / James M. Beattie.

A series of photographs of the interior of small creameries and separating station, probably from around the 1910s or 1920s. Their origins are unclear but it may be that they used in the journal of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. There is no indication of the location of these creameries. [ view full screen ]

full screen view

A catalogue from the Dairy Engineering Company, Bachelor’s Walk, Dublin. The company appears to have been a significant supplier of all things agricultural. A photograph of the premises from 1972 is available at Dublin City Libraries.
The catalogue is not dated but is probably from the first or second decade of the twentieth century. Pages 29 – 36 are missing but the piece remains an invaluable snapshot of the material culture of the world of farming animal husbandry and even gardening in the early c20th.