] ] The entrance Hall to Chawton House has a series of hooks along one wall, apparently to hang leather buckets on, in case of emergency.

] I'm not at all surprised. Fire buckets were usually the "first line of defense" in case of fire,

Would these buckets have waited empty or have contained sand? The reason I wonder is that I can remember sand filled buckets in my schooldays, kept ready as a primitive fire extinguisher. Presumably once a load of sand had been thrown over the fire in an attempt to deprive it of oxygen, they could be used for water later on. Most of these buildings (like many London Schools) were Victorian and I suspect that the fire buckets had been around for most if not all of their life.

Just wondering. These posts brought back a memory of all those sand filled buckets, generally used by teachers as convenient ash trays!