In Open Air Museum de Locht you will find a box bed in the stable and in the best room of the farm. That is a small enclosed space, with curtains or doors in front of it. It was often built against the wall of the room or kitchen. Actually it is a large bricked-in closet in which a bed is made.

Until the beginning of the 19th century, in the countryside even until the 20th century, everyone slept in a box bed. By our standards, it is very small. Not only were the people smaller, but they slept half sitting. Afraid if one was not to wake up anymore. The idea then was that the blood supply to the brain was too great when you lay flat. You could die from that.

Children slept above the footboard of the parents or in large drawers under the box bed. Whole families slept together to retain body heat. In this way they benefited from each other’s warmth. Cold was a big problem at the time. In the evening, the fire was extinguished for fire safety. Then it became just as cold inside the house as it was outside. The older boys slept in the attic.

After threshing, a bag of jute or linen was filled with the chaff or straw, often mixed with herbs against pests. That was the underbed or the mattress. At first you were high, but gradually it collapsed. That’s why it was shaken up daily. Every year again the bedbags were filled, in the old filling there were sometimes mice and fleas. The pillow and duvet were filled with hay, if you could afford it, down feathers went in.

In severe cold, a sheepskin came over it. Even then, you lost a lot of heat through the head. To protect themselves against the cold and also against lice of others, they wore a nightcap or a nightcap. Gerard Achten mentioned that when a guest stayed overnight, he crawled cozy in the box bed. People probably hadn’t heard of privacy at that time!

The bedcoach or bed box served the same purpose as the box bed, protecting from the cold, but it was a movable piece of furniture. The rich had beautiful ones, made by a furniture maker, with doors at the top and / or the side and drawers at the bottom. Sometimes those bed carriages were beautifully painted.

In the middle of the 20th century, box bedsteads and bed carriages disappeared. Due to the use of brick, heating with stoves and stoves and sleeping under wool blankets, it was no longer so cold in the houses. Bed carriages can only be found in museums.

A big difference with the present time. We have our own heated bedroom.