Before the refrigerator, the coolest corner of an Australian house did the work, and this stood in it. A mesh-sided safe does not cool anything, which is the thing most people get wrong about them. It ventilates. On this one the front was solid and the gauze ran down both flanks, so the air crossed it sideways while the doors kept the light and the flies off the butter.

Melbourne held onto them longest. In 1955, when Sydney was 83 per cent refrigerated and Brisbane 77, a third of Melbourne kitchens still had no fridge at all. These were not quaint here until about 1964, which is late enough that plenty of people now alive were sent out to one.

It has been opened up since. The doors and the back are off, the side gauze renewed, and what was a closed cupboard is now a narrow frame you can see straight through. The hinge scars are still on the stiles and we have left them there. At forty-seven centimetres wide it takes almost no floor, which is why it was worth opening and why it will get used.