Pothooks are S-shaped
metal hooks for suspending a
pot over a
fire. While one extremity is hooked to the handle of the pot, the other is caught upon an
iron crane moving on a over the fire. Modern
stoves have obviated the necessity for this arrangement, but it is still to be seen in great numbers of country
cottages and
farmhouse kitchens all over
England, and in small
artisan's houses in the west midlands and the north. In the elementary teaching of writing, the pothook is a script of similar shape.