XVI. SALT CELLARS, PEPPER BOXES, SUGAR BASINS, ETC.
The “Sunderland” salt cellars have already been mentioned (see page 39); moulded or cut-glass salt cellars are much less rare. The oldest of these seem to be those with oval bowls, in the Queen Anne silver style, with diamond-shape bases on short stems, everywhere cut. Some salt cellars have turned-over tops, much broader than the rest of the vessel; there are Bristol striped salt cellars of this shape. In some cut salt cellars the lines run horizontally. Victorian salt cellars were very heavy and rather plain.
Pepper boxes of glass are round, or octagonal, plain or cut, with or without a foot; holes are pierced in the top, there is a glass stopper at the bottom; sometimes the base is square and the pierced top is of silver. In some cases the vessel was used for castor-sugar.
Sugar-basins exist in numbers, and in plain, cut, opal, and coloured glass, notably in the Bristol blue. There are covered sugar basins; when these are large and cut they are known as sugar bowls. A special type is the caddy sugar-basin (see page 27); this was usually of straight-sided form, blown, moulded, or cut, or both moulded and cut; it stood in the central receptacle of a tea-caddy, within the round hole between the two rectangular boxes which held green tea and black tea respectively. These basins are much more seldom met with than the caddies are. Often they are very heavy, and nearly always they are very ornamental. Bristol opal-glass sugar and slop basins are met with; in this glass complete tea-sets were made, including tea poys or glass tea-caddies. In the Willett collection was “a Bristol glass teapot and cover, with flowers in colours.” A glass teapot is rarely found.