A country kitchen is a style of kitchen interior inspired by the working kitchens of British farmhouses, cottages and country houses, with freestanding furniture, natural materials and practical, well-used antiques. Typical elements include a dresser with plate rack, a scrubbed pine or sycamore table, Windsor or ladder-back chairs, stone or quarry-tiled floors, a range cooker and open shelving.
In historic houses the kitchen was a service space, furnished for function with large deal tables, meat safes, bread crocks, copper pans and chopping blocks. Interest in these utilitarian objects grew during the twentieth century, and today original kitchen furniture and equipment is keenly collected. Welsh and English dressers, baker's tables, salt-glazed storage jars, stoneware crocks, copper and brass cookware, treen and enamelled tinware all contribute to the look. Buyers should favour pieces with a genuine worn surface and original paint or scrubbed tops, rather than pine stripped heavily in acid baths. A well-composed country kitchen mixes a few substantial pieces with smaller accessories, and the style remains one of the most enduringly popular approaches to domestic interiors in Britain.
