Description:Postcard view of a fireplace with the wooden 'Flitch of Bacon' mounted above it.
The 'Wychnor Flitch' is a manorial custom dating from the 14th century. The owners of the Hall would be obliged to give a couple a flitch of bacon (i.e., half a pig's carcass) if they could swear that they lived happily together. By the second half of the 18th century the flitch had become symbolic and was represented by this carving. A similar custom is held at Great Dunmow in Essex.
Wychnor Hall is an 18th-century country house near Burton on Trent, Staffordshire. The Hall was formerly owned by the Levett Family, descendants of Theophilus Levett, who was Steward of the city of Lichfield in the early eighteenth century. The hall has been converted to a Country Club.
Photographer: J.S. Simnett of Burton-upon-Trent.