The legacy of that grandest of socialist statesmen, Sir Stafford Cripps, born 120 years ago this month, lives on at the westernmost extremity of Oxfordshire, in the lovely village of Filkins. Thanks to his munificence, the villagers have their own swimming pool and, near it, their own museum, too, the Swinford Museum — which came into being in the 1930s thanks to the efforts of a stonemason called George Swinford, who worked on Sir Stafford’s estate and persuaded him to found it.

One of this year’s exhibitions explains exactly how Victorian country people did their washing. It has some wonderful housewives’ tips about how to preserve fabrics and their colours – for instance: salt for woollens and to maintain the colour blue; bran for coloured prints; alum or vinegar for dark greens; and ox-gall, bought from the butcher, for browns and greys.

Cleanliness was seen as a moral issue (Cleanliness next to Godliness, and all that) but it was a week-long task.

A member of the museum’s board of trustees, Diane Blackett, explained that many 19th-century Cotswolds households contained a copper, usually in the scullery, in which about 20 gallons of water (drawn from a pump or well) could be boiled up.

On Sundays or even Saturdays, the laundry was sorted. Sheets and linens were covered with lukewarm water and a little soda and then left to soak overnight. Greasy clothes were soaked in a solution of half a pound of unslaked lime to six quarts of water.

Various curious implements were used on washday itself (usually Monday) — many of which will be on display at the museum. There was a ‘dolly’, a stick with a sort of wooden plate on the end for pounding the washing; or a ‘posser’, which resembled a modern plunger but made of copper rather than rubber.

Stains were a serious problem. Candle grease and oil from lamps could be removed with turpentine mixed with fuller’s earth; ink came out with lemon juice, and fruit stains with hot milk A mode of treatment was decided upon for each precious item, with best things washed first and more mundane things, such as kitchen cloths, dusters, and the rags used for cleaning out chamber pots, last. Items of intimate apparel such as body linen (underwear in modern parlance) came in between.

The job of wringing out heavy washing became a little easier with the arrival of wringing machines and mangles, which had a crank to turn rubber rollers that pressed out the water.

Ideally, the clothes were dried outside, but very often they had to be hauled up on an overhead clothes horse, where they remained, steaming, for much of the week.

Victorian fashion, of course, dictated that stiff clothes were de rigueur for some. This meant that men’s shirts were dipped into starch made of potato or rice flour, while frilly things such as ladies’ caps or petticoats were put in a mixture of starch, melted borax and candle wax diluted with water and simmered to a jelly.

Finally came, ironing, with the constant necessity of keeping the flat iron hot. The clothes were then worn on Sunday before the whole cycle started again.

The museum will be open (admission free) between 2.30pm and 5pm on May 3, June 7, June 14 (garden open and classic car show), July 5, August 2 and September 6.