Brown sugar produced by enslaved labour left the Home’s plantations in Grenada packed into large wooden barrels weighing between 800 and 1500 lbs (360-680kg); it was shipped to Britain and sold.

British factories refined the brown sugar into white sugar, formed it into sugarloaves, wrapped it in blue sugar paper, and it was sold to shopkeepers and consumers.

The sugar snips were used to cut lumps of sugar off the sugarloaf; these were placed into sugar bowls.

The sugar tongs were used to place the lumps of sugar in tea, coffee or hot chocolate. The sugar tongs were made in London in 1774, the year after Ninian and Penelope Home bought Paxton House.