Yale University Library

39002027837344

YALE UNIVERSITY
ART LIBRARY

LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT
OLD FURNITURE
I. TUDOR TO STUART

SEVEN CENTURIES OF
LACE. By Mrs. JOHN HUN
GERFORD POLLEN. With a
Preface by Alan Cole. Royal 4to,
with 120 illustrations, price 30s. net.
LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN

Jacobean Oak Dresser (Seventeenth Century).

LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT OLD FURNITURE
ENGLISH FURNITURE : BY J. P. BLAKE
6? A. E. REVEIRS-HOPKINS. VOLUME I

TUDOR TO STUART

i

ILLUSTRATED

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

At-ir
Jka.5SB II E>

Copyright London 1911 by William Heimmann

INTRODUCTION
These little books will probably not appeal to
connoisseurs, nor will they interest advanced
collectors. They are merely intended to offer
suggestion and a certain amount of information to
that large and increasing body of persons to whom
old pieces of furniture are more interesting than
new, and to show that no extraordinary income
is essential to making a collection. For, as a
fact, a simple eighteenth-century chair from
farmhouse or modest city dwelling is historically
as much an object of interest as the finest example
of elaborate cabinet-making. It is, moreover,
probable that the huge sums paid for fine pieces
are occasionally more the outcome of a vulgar
desire to possess than a genuine delight in the
beautiful or a laudable interest in the historical
aspects of old furniture. A person who purchases
an old gate-leg table, a settle, or an oak chest for
five pounds has an article of great utility and
one which provides a tangible link with the past
and is in itself a piece of history.
A collector's object should always be to acquire
antiques, not dilapidations. A piece of furni
ture is not good because it is old. It may be
interesting for this reason, but the first quality
i v b

vi INTRODUCTION
which should be asked from any article is utility.
As Bacon wrote " Of Building " : " Leave the
goodly fabrics of houses for beauty only to the
enchanted palaces of the poets, who build them
at small cost." Of course, furniture should be
pleasing and interesting, but if it is useless it
should not escape rejection. It is by no means
uncommon to find a broken-down relic of an
tiquity taken to the bosom of a family where
it finds a resting-place without paying, as it
were, for the cost of its keep. Therefore the
present books are not guides for the collector
who wishes to turn his house into a museum,
but for him who desires to surround himself
with useful household gods possessing historical
and sentimental interest.
There are, of course, elaborate and expensive
works which deal with the subject more ex
haustively than can be hoped in little books
of this compass. Such works inevitably describe
and illustrate unique specimens of antique furni
ture which could have been constructed only for
the wealthy few. Furthermore they can from
their great rarity, apart from their extreme cost,
scarcely be acquired even by the millionaire
of to-day. In the present series, although we
have illustrated fine specimens of furniture for
purposes of comparison and historical interest,

INTRODUCTION vii
we direct attention in the main to simple and
inexpensive articles.
The collecting habit is not confined to the
wealthy. When the whole history of man comes
to be written we shall read that he is a collect
ing animal. Acquisitiveness is inborn in the
majority — it is only a matter of degree — and
recognising this, together with the fact that there
are little things worth collecting as well as great,
this series sets out to be a guide to the collector
of moderate means. The first volume deals
with the period from early times to James II. ,
during which oak was the wood generally in
use for the making of furniture.
To arrive at a representative list of illustrations
we have gone both to public and private collec
tions, as well as to the floating stocks of well-
known London and provincial antique dealers.
We should express our thanks to the Director
and Secretary of the Victoria and Albert Museum
for permission to reproduce a number of the
exhibits, and especially for causing a number
of pieces to be specially photographed for us ;
and also to members of the Museum staff (par
ticularly Mr. Oliver Brackett and Mr. H. W.
McReath) for various courtesies. Also to Mr.
Walter Withall, of 18 Bedford Row, W.C., Mr.
J. D. Phillips, of Slough, the Worshipful Master of

viii INTRODUCTION
the Carpenters' Company, the Reverend Master
of the Charterhouse, and the Librarian of the
Guildhall for permission to reproduce from their
collections. We have in addition to thank Mr.
C. J. Charles, of 27 Brook Street, W. ; Messrs.
Gill & Reigate Ltd., of Oxford Street, W.;
Messrs. Hampton & Sons Ltd., of Pall Mall;
Messrs. Mawer & Stephenson Ltd., of 221
Fulham Road, S.W., for permission to reproduce
various interesting articles from their stock ; and
particularly to Mr. F. W. Phillips, of the Manor
House, Hitchin, Herts, whose pleasing galleries
are always worth a visit.
The writers of these Little Books about Old
English Furniture are not dealers and have no con
nection with the trade. They are merely amateur
collectors themselves, and they have endeavoured
to state the results of their own studies and
experiences for the information of people simi
larly situated.
J. P. Blake.
A. E. Reveirs-Hopkins.
21 Bedford Street, W.C.

CHAPTERS

I.

ON MAKING A COLLECTION

i

II.

COFFERS OR CHESTS

IS

III.

JOINT-STOOLS, BIBLE BOXES AND

SETTLES

34

IV.

CHAIRS

52

V.

TABLES

69

VI.

CUPBOARDS, DRESSERS, AND CHESTS

OF DRAWERS
81
VII.
BEDSTEADS AND CRADLES
97
VIII.
WOODWORK. NOTES ON CARVING
AND DECORATION
105
DATES AND STYLES OF
WOODWORK
Tudor .
Stuart :
Henry VII.
Henry VIII.
Edward VI.
Mary Elizabeth James I.
Charles I.
Commonwealth Charles II.
James II.
DATES
1485-15091 I509-I547I547-IS53I553-I558J 1558-1603 1603-I625")1625-I649J
1649-1660 1660-1685"*! 1685-1688/ ix
STYLE
Tudor Elizabethan
JacobeanCromwellianJacobean or
Carole an
BIBLIOGRAPHY
We have the pleasure to acknowledge our indebtedness to
the following works :
F. Rowe : " Old Oak Furniture," " Ancient Coffers and
Cupboards." Thoroughly reliable. In our opinion the
best books written on old oak furniture. The result of
personal observation and great research.
Percy Macquoid : " The Age of Oak." A monumental
work, sumptuously illustrated.
Shaw: "Ancient Furniture." Published in 1837. Now out
of print, but occasionally to be picked up second-hand.
The engravings are probably unexcelled in any furniture
book.
Thomas Wright : " Homes of Other Days." Gives extremely
interesting details of home life from Saxon times to
Elizabeth.
Robert Brock : " Elements of Style in Furniture and
Woodwork." A useful little book.
Edwin Foley: "The Book of Decorative Furniture." Pub
lished 191 1 with a large number of coloured illustrations
by the latest process.
W. B. Sanders : " Half-Timbered Houses and Carved Oak
Furniture of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries "
and " Examples of Carved Oak Woodwork, Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries."
J. H. Pollen : " Ancient and Modern Furniture and Wood
work." An admirable little handbook and guide to the
furniture and woodwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
and usually on sale at the Museum bookstalls.
xi

CHAPTER I: ON MAKING A
COLLECTIONWe will assume the desire to make a collection
of old Oak. How shall we start ? It is more than
likely that we have a house fairly well filled
with modern furniture. If so, reformation
involves a process of gradual displacement, and
occasionally ruthless elimination. On the other
hand, if in our furnishing we start with a clean
deck our task is simpler. There is a good deal
to be said for well-made modern furniture, and
there can be little doubt but that certain offices
are best filled by it. But a house has never yet
been made interesting by a collection of raw
modern furniture without the gathered charm of
age or the lights and shades of association. We
are busy people — this book is written for people
who are busy in the main — and we may not,
on the average, spend more than fourteen hours
a day in our home, and we want those hours
to be as restful to the mind as possible. On the
other hand we may be there twenty-four hours
a day, and the longer the time the less we desire
to be bored by uninteresting things around us.
There is only one Courtenay bedstead, and
that being in the Victoria and Albert Museum

2 OLD FURNITURE
at South Kensington we must content ourselves
with something less — probably very much less.
If we cannot aspire to a fine Elizabethan draw-
table worth a couple of hundred guineas, we must
satisfy ourselves with a seventeenth century
" gate leg " worth five or ten pounds. The
finest examples of court cupboards may be
beyond our means, but not necessarily the useful
Yorkshire or Welsh dresser, the small Jacobean
serving-table costing anything between ten and
twenty pounds, or the eighteenth-century farm
house panelled oak chest, which may be picked
up at a country sale for considerably less than a
five-pound note.
The idea of an old-oak bedroom is perhaps an
alluring one, but there is little we can think of
in that direction which would make our eight
hours (more or less) essentially comfortable.
The old carved four-poster with its stuffy
hangings is certainly not hygienic, and there is
little else beside in the way of old oak entirely
suitable for this room. So we will, for the present,
dismiss the bedroom idea with a sigh, and think
of it another time in connection with walnut,
mahogany, or satinwood.
The drawing-room is the next to consider as
to its suitability for the reception of old oak,
and as we are to live in the house and not to run

OLD FURNITURE 3
it as a museum, we can dismiss the idea at once.
We shall scarcely find an ideal couch, even with
the aid of cushions, in the unrelenting oak settle.
There is nothing in the shape of a Yorkshire
or Derbyshire chair or a joint-stool which will
take the place of the dainty occasional seat so
dear to the heart of the presiding genius. We
might find a small table to hold the hundred
and one silver knick-knacks and bijouterie; but
we should certainly not discover a pianoforte —
" cottage " or " grand " — built in the stirring
times of Elizabeth or Cromwell. We might, by
a lucky chance, happen upon a seventeenth-
century virginal. There is an oak-cased one
at South Kensington, and history has a habit of
repeating itself ; but at best, whatever its
decorative qualities, the virginal is but a tinkling
instrument. In the library, or " den," we have a better
field for operations, and with a certain amount
of adaptation we could fit up our study harmo
niously in oak. A bureau with sloping lid and
three drawers under, dating from the days of
good Queen Anne, will hold our stationery and
amply serve when we are in the writing mood.
It will not clash with our writing chair with solid
arms and sloping back built in the previous
reign. A gate-leg table of fair proportion for

4 OLD FURNITURE
the centre and a couple of small oblong tables
against the walls will hold all the necessary and
unnecessary litter of papers and magazines. An
oak dower chest, particularly if it is one with
a " drawer under," will form an ideal receptacle
for print portfolios and maps. The bookcase
will be our chief difficulty. Our oak bureau
may possibly be surmounted by a cupboard
containing shelves enclosed with unglazed doors.
Such pieces are not plentiful, and, after all, we
want the book titles well under our eyes. With
a little coaxing a high Welsh or Yorkshire dresser
will serve if our library is not extensive. The
plate shelves will hold the books and the drawers
will be handy for unbound volumes and manu
scripts. The table top of the main structure
will hold a few bold blue and white Chinese
or Delft Jars. Old oak is the perfect background
for " blue and white," and each benefits by the
proximity of the other. But if our book collec
tion is extensive we must recognise the limita
tions of material, face the fact, and build
a sufficiency of oak shelves in uncompromising
straight lines, with plain skirt -board and simple
cornice quite devoid of any carving or applied
ornament. If these shelves, preferably made
from planks cut out of old beams, are carefully
darkened to the prevailing tone of the old furni-

OLD FURNITURE 5
ture by the aid of a water stain (curiously enough
a walnut stain gives the best result) and then
wax-polished they will be sufficiently self-effacing
not to mar the general scheme. Our writing
chair will be supplemented with a few straight-
backed seats nearest in date to the period of our
larger furniture, and we must have one chair, if
not two, for absolute comfort, and these are not
to be found amongst the antiques. These modern
chairs for comfortable reading must be deep
and wide with fairly broad arms and backs
high enough to form head-rests. They must
have hair-stuffed and springy seats and might be
upholstered in brown cowhide entirely covering
the frames, leaving no wood visible excepting
the short square legs furnished with ball
castors. With the dining-room we shall have still less
difficulty. The first consideration is the dining
table, and we can choose between three types
— the oval "gate-leg," the oblong "refectory,"
and the " withdrawing." The dimensions of
a full-sized " gate-leg " table will scarcely exceed
5 ft. 6 in. by 4 ft. — ample room to seat six persons.
It has the slight disadvantage of being somewhat
too leggy for absolute comfort. A collector once
said, in boasting of his " gate-leg," that it was
so beautiful that he did not mind his guests

6 OLD FURNITURE
grazing their shins whilst there were no legs where
he and his wife sat. The refectory table, with
heavy top, bulbous legs and foot-rail all round,
may be anything from 5 to io feet in length,
with a width of something between 2 ft. 3 in.
and 2 ft. 6 in. The " withdrawing " table is
the handiest, albeit the most expensive, for our
purpose. A small one would measure 3 ft. 3 in.
by 2 ft. extending to 6 ft. in length when open.
A large one 4 ft. 3 in. by 2 ft. 3 in., extending
to 7 ft. 6 in. in length. The extension is obtained
by pulling out the end-pieces which lie snugly
under the centre portion when not in use. There
are no extra legs to interfere with the comfort of
the diners, the extensions being supported by
means of brackets or runners fixed to the under
sides and projecting backwards into the main
body of the table. Against the wall a dwarf
Jacobean dresser or serving-table with drawers
forms a necessary adjunct to the somewhat
narrow dining table. It will measure about 6 ft.
in length with a width of about 18 in.
It is probable, if space allows, that we shall
find it desirable to have a second dresser for the
display of our willow-pattern plates and dishes,
and perhaps a court cupboard about six feet high
with a receding and canopied upper story.
Under the canopy we can place one or two bold

OLD FURNITURE 7
blue and white jars of the period. The dresser
and the court cupboard will, with their various
drawers and enclosed spaces, afford ample accom
modation for the dining napery and table appoint
ments. The chairs will be chosen, as far as
possible, to harmonise with the heavier furniture,
and if a couple of fireside chairs are considered
necessary they had better be built for the pur
pose in the same manner as suggested for the
library. Our old-oak room will not be quite complete
unless the walls have a dado of, or are entirely
covered with, oak panelling. If this is not
possible we must avoid all imitations and content
ourselves with painted, distempered, or canvas-
covered walls in a colour best suited to the aspect
of the room. The floor, if possible, should be
of plain oak, wax polished, on which are laid
oriental rugs — preferably Persian strips — in sub
dued shades. Here we have merely suggested the
necessary appointments of the room. The col
lector will fill in the picture as space admits,
his own fancy guides, and his purse allows, and
although this chapter may be considered a counsel
of perfection, it is well to aim high.
The next consideration is how to get the things.
Twenty or thirty years ago it was an easy enough
matter. As old homes were broken up the old

8 OLD FURNITURE
furniture came into the market and so little was
thought of it that it went for the proverbial
" mere song." Since then, as the taste for old
things grew, the dealers and their agents have
been scouring the countryside crying " New
lamps for old," and hundreds of old farmhouses
and country cottages have exchanged their fine
old oak, which has withstood the ravages of two
or three centuries, for Curtain Road mahogany
which will fall to " cureless ruin " in twenty
years. The amateur collector can scarcely follow
the same tactics and will, in the main, have to
rely upon the dealer or the auction room for his
supply (although he should by no means abandon
the idea of finding things in the country for
himself). It does not follow that the dealer's
profit is of necessity an exhorbitant one. As a
rule he has gone to considerable trouble and
expense in acquiring his stock and as often as
not he has a fund of expert knowledge which
he is ready enough to impart to the would-be
purchaser, and we can do little less than pay for
his experience. There are tricks in every trade,
and the old-furniture trade is not exempt from
black sheep. But from a fairly wide personal
experience we have found the dealer willing to
return frankness for frankness. In any case his
sins will sooner or later find him out, and if his

OLD FURNITURE 9
business is extensive it has generally been got
together by honest dealing.
Intelligent restoration is no little part of the
dealer's business. A decrepit piece of furniture
is of little use in the home, and it is not every
amateur who is capable of doing his own repairs.
In buying a restored article we have a perfect
right to know what is original and what is new
in the structure, and the respectable dealer is
always ready to give a guarantee in this respect.
There is no royal road to knowledge of the
antique. To know a piece of furniture for genuine
at sight is a natural gift to a few and one acquired
slowly and painfully by others. The clever fake
generally errs on the side of being too good, and
the mellowing influence of old Time has never
been successfully imitated by the furniture
faker. A so-called piece of old furniture may
be constructed of old wood artificially mellowed
to the right tone, but there will be something in
the carving which will tell its tale. We shall
find a weak spot somewhere. The faker generally
makes at least one mistake. Perhaps in the cross
cut of the chisel we shall discover a roughness
of the end grain that should have been smoothed
by a century or more of wear and exposure.
Somewhere in the inner recesses of the chest or
cupboard we shall find the unmistakable signs

io OLD FURNITURE
of artificial staining or soiling, whereas, in the old
piece, those parts which have not been freely ex
posed to the air and housewife's polishing cloth
will have a comparatively fresh appearance. This
freshness, as distinguished from newness, is
difficult to describe. Old-oak furniture was, as
a rule, put together with mortice and tenon,
held in place by the aid of wooden dowels or
pegs. Often, in the course of time, these dowels
have become loose. In positions where they
can be tightly driven home, they may easily be
mistaken for nails. They are, moreover, roughly
constructed and quite unlike the machine-made
dowels of] modern times. It would be foolish to
lay down any hard-and-fast rule as to the colour
of old oak. As a .general rule it is brown, and
we can look with a certain amount of suspicion
on the black variety. There are undoubtedly
genuine pieces extant which are as black as ebony,
but on close examination it will be found that
it is not the wood that is black but the varnish
or wax that has been added from time to time.
It is sometimes better to remove the surface
discoloration if it can be done without injury
to the wood. Old oak, more than any other
kind of furniture, seems to have the habit of col
lecting dirt and grease which is easily removed by
washing with warm water and soap and a little

OLD FURNITURE n
common washing soda. When perfectly clean
and dry a polish of beeswax and turpentine will
give all the gloss necessary and bring out the
beautiful grain and figuring of the wood. It is
practically certain that in olden times furniture
was, as a rule, polished with dry beeswax without
the aid of turpentine or other solvent, and more
rarely with linseed oil. The oil treatment had
the effect of darkening the wood, and at the same
time diminishing the beautiful grain.
Varnish also appears to have been used from
the sixteenth century, and judging from the condi
tion of the varnish still remaining upon some old
pieces, must have been a remarkably enduring
composition. It is well to remark that oil
polished furniture must be kept in a dry atmos
phere. When exposed to the damp it is apt
to turn to an unpleasing grey shade.
One of the great beauties of oak consists in the
figuring. The reader will have noticed that in
fine panelwork the panel piece shows a charming
figured surface, whilst the frames are straight
grained — the whole being somewhat in the
nature of a framed picture. The " figures "
consist of flakes of a harder substance than the
rest of the material composing the tree trunk.
There is no method by which the log may be cut
to produce figured planks. It is a mere matter

12 OLD FURNITURE
of luck. In cutting up a trunk it may happen
that little or no figuring may be discovered.
The flakes run in various directions, but generally
more or less perpendicularly up and down the
grain and are generally disposed near the out
side of the trunk. The timber merchant, when
sawing the trunk into planks, happens upon the
figuring, and such portions are put aside to make
veneers and panel pieces, whilst the straight-
grained planks go for ordinary work. Figured
oak is much more durable than the straight
grained. A panel of figured oak less than a
quarter of an inch thick will last good for two
or three centuries, and often outlive the straight-
grained framing which may be an inch thick.
The flakes or figures being so much more dense
do not absorb the stain or colouring matter in the
polish, and in the course of time stand out in
slight relief as the softer portions are worn away
by the action of the atmosphere or polishing
cloth. Thus it is sometimes possible to detect
presumptive evidence of age in oak by the touch.
The small broker's shop is not the happiest
of hunting grounds for our old oak, simply because
the small dealer generally sells anything good
he may happen upon to the big dealer who can
afford to wait for his market. For all that, the
small out-of-the-way shop is not to be despised,

OLD FURNITURE 13
and if we keep our eyes open we can occasionally
find a fine old piece of oak, perhaps encrusted
with dirt and varnish, lurking behind the painted
washstands, chests of drawers, and rolls of
linoleum. In almost every country town there is an
auction room to which household goods are,
according to the catalogues, " removed for
convenience of sale," and in the West End of
London there are a number of auction marts,
and scarcely a day passes but numbers of antiques
are catalogued. The back pages of the Monday
morning penny papers mostly give notice of the
forthcoming sales, and the keen collector will
run his eye through the advertisements from
Christie's downwards, and, if he has time to spare,
will give himself the opportunity of being his
own middleman.
One advantage of inspecting things on show
in the auction room consists in the absence of
the notice, so prevalent in the museums, " Visitors
must not touch the specimens." The collector
will in time train his sense of touch to aid his
judgment by eye, and it is always good to be able
to open doors and pull out drawers in search of
evidence for and against.
It must always be remembered that the
auctioneer sells " with all errors of description,"

i4 OLD FURNITURE
and gives no warranty ; but as a rule he is
courteous by nature and training, and with a
little tact the would-be buyer can sometimes
obtain a valuable opinion some time before the
commencement of the sale. Apart from a wide
knowledge gained from constant handling of the
goods the salesman is in the position of knowing
whether they emanate from a good or indifferent
source. The question what to buy is a very big one.
The golden rule is : never buy that which does
not please you simply because it is cheap. Better
give a little more for something you really like,
and, having bought, do not part with it until you
get something you like better. The market value
fluctuates, and you may have to dispose of the
discarded article at a small loss. In the main
the market for all good antiques is steadily on
the rise, and it is a fair assumption that the collector
in reselling will be on the right side if he has
used fair discretion in purchasing.
Another golden rule is : never be in a hurry.
Right or wrong, never buy till you have quite
made up your mind — particularly at an auction.
There are few things in the world more relentless
than the auctioneer's hammer.

CHAPTER II : COFFERS OR
CHESTS
The chest or coffer was probably the first article
of household furniture. Its construction being
of the simplest it would have been an undertaking
within the powers of the early carpenters and
joiners. Its uses were manifold. It was a re
ceptacle for clothes, linen, and weapons ; it was
a depository for valuables before the days of
banks. Sometimes an iron ring was fastened to
each end, and it then became a travelling trunk,
to be slung on a pole between two mules, and
thus carried from place to place. In addition
to its obvious uses as a receptacle it was requisi
tioned as a seat in the very earliest times, and
came into general use in England long before
chairs which, in early days, were a luxury pro
curable only by wealthy people. Finally it
was used as a bedstead ; Richard III. is said
to have slept on his military chest at an inn
at Leicester called the " Blue Boar," on the
eve of the battle of Bosworth.
The earliest and finest examples of coffers are to
be found in the old English churches ; the church
being the first patron of the arts, the craftsman
naturally turned to her for employment; and
IS

16 OLD FURNITURE
many of the fine early coffers from Gothic times
to the spacious ones of Elizabeth are to be found
in the churches. It may be supposed that in
no other situation would they have survived the
humidity of the English climate. The church
coffers in the early thirteenth century were, by
order of the Pope, alms chests into which the
people placed their offerings in aid of the Crusade.
The tilting chests, with carved panels of knights
and tournament, belong to the fourteenth cen
tury, but these first oak chests are scarcely to be
discovered now ; neither are the beautiful Gothic
traceried coffers of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. They are beyond the dreams or means
of the small collector. Fig. I represents a quite
exceptional Gothic coffer which will be found
in the Church of the Holy Cross — the parish
church — at Crediton, Devonshire. For some
years this chest had been in the old Manor House
of Trobridge, the home of the Yarde family.
In 1 90 1 it was restored to Crediton Church by
Mr. John Yarde. It measured 5 ft. 6 in. in
length, 2 ft. 1 in. in depth and 3 ft. 2 in. in
height, and rests on a plinth which has every
appearance of being of somewhat later date than
the chest, which probably belongs to the six
teenth century. The carved work is in the
design pf a traceried window, with ogee arches

;i!f.

¦ ' i_, ,  -¦;  ;!¦¦_. ~****^**^*1^"™'"'  "  — ¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦¦i'. , '

FIG. 2. COFFER OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII

Fig. 3. FINE ELIZABETHAN INLAID COFFER

Fig. 4. CHEST WITH ROUND ARCHES (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Fig. 7
SIMPLE CHESTS (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 8. CHEST WITH APPLIED ORNAMENTATION (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Fig. 9. ESTHER HOBSONNE'S CHEST (DATED 1637)

Fig. ii Fig. 12
JOYNED STOOLS (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 13. TUDOR STOOL IN THE CHARTERHOUSE, LONDON

OLD FURNITURE 17
ornamented with elaborate crockets. The span
drels filling up the top parts of the panels over
the arches are filled with tracery, and on the
central panel under an open-traceried canopy is
a carved representation of the " Adoration of the
Magi." The lock-plate is of very elaborate design.
It may be objected that if this coffer is of
foreign originit should find no place in this volume.
Although the flamboyant nature of the carving
points to a foreign origin, probaby Flemish or
French, it may be of English workmanship ; as a
matter of fact there is no positive evidence one way
or the other. In our experience, when a writer
comes across anything exceptionally fine in the
nature of Gothic carving he is prone to dub it
"foreign." We have not"far to go from Crediton to find
something as good which is indisputably
English. Within the " cliff-like masonry " of
Exeter Cathedral we shall find the Bishop's
throne of carved oak, a towering, canopied seat
rising nearly sixty feet from the floor of the choir
to within ten feet of the vaulting. This magnifi
cent piece of decorated Gothic work is put
together without a single nail, and on more than
one occasion it has been taken to pieces, and once
in troublous times it was^hidden away. Canon
Edmonds tells us it was erected in the days of
T b

18 OLD FURNITURE
Bishop Stapledon (who completed the choir ia
the years 1 307-1 3 1 8) and that from the "fabric
rolls " of the Cathedral " it is possible to point,
with high probability, to the two parishes
from which the oak came, and almost to the
woods in which it grew." Incidentally, the
cost of the work and timber was under thirteen
pounds. One begins to ask if Exeter could produce
the Bishop's throne in the fourteenth century,
why should not Crediton — the mother of Exeter
— produce a fine coffer in the sixteenth century ?
The local adage says :
" Kirton was a market town
When Exeter was a vuzzy down,"
and doubtless, after the seat of the bishopric was
moved in the time of the Confessor from Crediton
— the town on the Creedy — to Exeter (for
greater safety from incursions of the Danes),
the good bishops kept fatherly eyes on the
church and adornments of the church of the
more ancient see.
Perhaps we come nearer to the point when we
consider the carved stalls of St. George's Chapel
at Windsor, which were begun in 1477 and
finished in 1483. They were made in London
by two Englishmen, Robert Ellis and John Filles.

OLD FURNITURE 19
It is recorded that six of these superb canopies
cost £80 each. (We are indebted to Mr. Francis
Bond for these details.) The Great Rood and
statues of St. George and St. Edward were
carved by Diricke Vangrove and Giles Vancastell
— they carved four images at five shillings per
foot. Here we find English and Dutch craftsmen
working side by side on practically one work,
and it redounds to the credit of the Hollanders
that they were responsible for the more difficult
section, viz. the sculptured busts. Gothic archi
tecture in its essence is not native to British soil,
but we call our Cathedrals English even when
erected by Norman bishops who employed
imported craftsmen. Experts will, in certain
pieces of carving, discern foreign " influence,"
and even indications of foreign build, but unless
we have direct proof, or at least presumptive
evidence to the contrary, let us still think of some
of our old Gothic carved coffers as English. In
Chapter 8 (Fig. 89) we give an example of a
small Gothic coffer of admittedly English
origin.
fc At the end of the fifteenth century the linen-
fold decoration came into vogue in England,
the idea having been imported from France.
Although this form of carving very clearly suggests
the folding of a linen napkin, it could have had

20 OLD FURNITURE
no reference to the contents of the coffer which,
in those days of exceedingly limited household ap
pointments, would not have been reserved for any
such special use. Moreover, linenfold decoration
was used on chairs and other forms of furniture,
and especially for panelling. An exceedingly fine
example (although restored) of a linen-panelled
room is to be seen at Hampton Court Palace.
It is also said that this decoration was suggested
by the hangings which covered the walls in early
times, and the idea was afterwards adopted by the
cofferer in the embellishment of chests (see
Chapter VIII : Woodwork. Notes on Carving and
Decoration). Specimens of the linenfold chests
of the rougher sorts are still to be collected at
unextravagant prices, although these are probably
rarely of English origin.
Fig. 2 is an oak coffer at the Victoria and
Albert Museum. It belongs to the sixteenth
century, probably the latter part of Henry VIlI.'s
reign. The lid is fitted with four plain panels
within a moulded framework. The middle one
of the three front panels is carved with a floral
scrolling ornament, and the other two with a
male and female bust respectively, in the style
known as " Romayne," of which we shall have
more to say in Chapter VIII. The chest has a
lock-plate with scrolling outline, and the top rail is

OLD FURNITURE 21
carved with an inscription : fere god to love
god. Elizabeth reigned from 1558 to 1603, and the
earliest chest or coffer which, in the ordinary
way, one would become possessed of would date
from this reign. The decoration of fine speci
mens of the Elizabethan coffer sometimes takes
the form of elaborate carvings of robed female
figures called caryatids. On the panels of these
coffers these are used in the form of supports
instead of purely architectural columns. More
generally, however, we find the decoration to
consist of architectural facades in whole or in
part, elaborate in the case of fine pieces and plain
in the case of simple ones. An elaborate and
beautiful example of this style and period is to be
seen in the cathedral church of St. Saviour at
Southwark (close to London Bridge Station).
In the opinion of Mr. Fred Roe (a great authority
on old oak), this is one of the finest architectural
pieces in existence. It appears to have been pre
sented to the church by Hugh Offley, Sheriff
of London, 1588. It is said to have been given
by him to the church to commemorate his year
of office. It is well worth an inspection as,
although to procure anything similar is almost
impossible, such fine pieces are always worth
studying for the purpose of educating the eye

22 OLD FURNITURE
in colour and fine carving. It is inlaid with
various woods — walnut, pear, cherry, etc. — but
with the traffic of ages now appears all one
colour. Fig. 3 is a chest of similar style and period
which, although less ambitious in design, is a
happy and interesting specimen of the Elizabethan
inlaid architectural coffer. The inlays consist
mainly of bog-oak and cherry. Not only is the
chest architectural in design consisting of Renais
sance arches, but it will be noticed that archi
tectural views have been worked in by means of
the inlays.
Ordinary oak coffers of the period of Elizabeth
or a little later are by no means impossible or even
difficult to find, genuine specimens, although
undjstinguished in ornamentation, being pro
curable at reasonable prices. Such coffers
have top rails roughly carved with inter
laced ribands, known as strapwork, a style of
decoration almost inseparable from all forms of
carved furniture of this period. The front
panels are of architectural design generally con
sisting of round-headed or depressed Norman
arches and pillars, such as is shown in Fig. 4.
This chest was purchased at Ipswich for £7 10s.
The reader will note that it has been unskilfully
repaired. It is quite obvious that similar pieces

OLD FURNITURE 23
of moulding to those forming the capitals should
be at the bases of the columns instead of the
strips of carving. r
Other chests of this period bear geometrical
patterns or conventional flowers and foliage.
The end panels are usually unornamented, but
occasionally the end top rails are carved in con
formity with the front ones. More often than not
the top and bottom rails at the ends are merely
relieved with a simple moulding on the under
and upper edges respectively. Less desirable
specimens have solid slabs instead of panels
at the ends. The legs of panelled chests are
usually formed by the prolongation of the end
stiles back and front. In the unpanelled variety
the legs are formed by prolonging the end-pieces
from which V-shaped or lunette pieces are cut,
leaving four feet much after the manner of an
old-fashioned school form. The lock plates,
if any, are invariably of iron, and the hinges
generally consist of staples and eyes wrought by
the blacksmith.
The furniture succeeding the Elizabethan
period was very distinct in character, and still
chiefly made from oak. Wood-carving at this
time — the Jacobean — must have been on the wane,
as chests are generally decorated with applied
ornaments, not cut from the solid as in the

24 OLD FURNITURE
preceding age. The joiner's work and general
finish is, however, of the best, and a very large
number of pieces survive practically in as good
a condition as when made, with all the added
beauty which age, and perhaps a little beeswax
and turpentine and a liberal supply of elbow-
grease, give to oak. A chest of this period
will easily survive the time of the longest lived
amongst us, and in addition there is the reflection
— which may or may not add a zest to collecting
— that it can be handed down to one's descendents
without depreciation.
A reference to the woodwork of the Jacobean
period will show a decoration consisting of a line
of acorns or drops. Generally known as " split
balustrade," this decoration will be found to be
made up of lathe- turned beads, drops, and spindles
sawn longitudinally and glued or pegged to the
main body. The panels are now more geometri
cal and less architectural. They are composed of
mitred mouldings worked into squares, oblongs,
stars, and lozenges. For instance, a square may
be found containing another square, the four
angles of which touch the centres of the lines of
the outer one. Again an oblong may contain
a lozenge arranged in a similar form ; a square
may have an L-shaped panel superimposed at
each corner, and so on in endless variety. The

OLD FURNITURE 25
general effect, although formal and lacking in
imagination, is very dignified and restrained.
The feet of these chests sometimes consist of egg-
shaped or more or less globular turnings. When
the Jacobean chest is decorated with chisel work
it usually takes the form (carried forward from
Elizabeth) of the rounded arch, with a frieze of
strapwork or floral design. The strapwork, how
ever, is less pure than that of the Elizabethan
period. It is to be noted that a strict regard for
utility is characteristic of all Jacobean furniture.
A moderately good specimen of the chest of the
Jacobean period should be" purchased for about
five pounds, and a very fair one for from ten to
fifteen. Figs. 5, 6, and 7 are illustrations of the simpler
forms of chests of country make usually classed
as Jacobean, although probably ranging in date
from about 1650 to well into the middle
of the eighteenth century. Fig. 5 represents
an early unpanelled coffer made by some village
carpenter who has indicated two panels by
shallow channelling containing primitive
lozenge work. In this case the end slabs are
prolonged and inverted V-shaped pieces cut out
to form the feet. It is 3 ft. 9 in. wide, 2 ft. 1 in.
high, and I ft. 2 in. from back to front. Such a
piece could be bought retail for about thirty

26 OLD FURNITURE
shillings. Fig. 6, which is of about the same
value, is distinctly Jacobean in character with its
raised mouldings enclosing the two panels, which
add a touch of dignity to an otherwise plain
coffer. Although the outside measurements are
two or three inches less than in the case of
Fig. 5 it is obviously more commodious. Fig. 7
is exceptionally interesting. The frieze is
decorated with Jacobean beading; and the
lower rail and panels are inlaid with lozenges
of hollywood. All these decorations may
be found singly or conjointly on a great
numbe'r of specimens. This chest is slightly
larger than the two previously mentioned,
and would be worth from seventy to eighty
shillings. Fig. 8 is a very pleasing Jacobean chest with
a drawer, the property of Mr. J. H. Springett,
of High Street, Rochester. The moulded panel
work shows considerable skill in design, particu
larly in regard to the L-shaped pieces right and
left. The " nail head " projections on the top
rail are repeated at the ends. It will be noticed
that the top rail is also decorated with grooves
which form a reverse pattern to the split balus
trades on the styles. This chest, valued at seven
guineas, came from the neighbourhood of Sitting-
bourne, and, having seen several similar specimens

OLD FURNITURE 27
in the district, Mr. Springett considers it a piece
of Kentish furniture.
It may certainly be laid down as a maxim that
in choosing furniture we should endeavour to
acquire articles of some definite historical interest.
A little carving or moulding, however rough, is
very often an indication of the time in which
the furniture was made, and establishes the link
of interest with the past. For this reason a date
in particular, if genuine, is of great importance.
The chest in the Victoria and Albert Museum
(Fig. 9), which is carved with the inscription
" This is Esther Hobsonne chist, 1637," ^s an
interesting example. In 1637 Charles I. was
King. The Civil War raged from 1642 to 165 1,
and during this period a large quantity of house
hold chattels must have been destroyed or
dispersed, just as in earlier times the Wars of
the Roses wrought havoc amongst the peaceful
creations of domestic art. Esther Hobsonne was
probably a young married woman during the
Civil War, although the decoration of her coffer
hardly affords evidence as to whether her husband
was a Roundhead or a Cavalier. The chest, there
is very little doubt, was a dower chest presented
to her, probably by her parents, to provide a
receptacle for her trousseau. The chest is a good
example of the free play of the chisel, and without

28 OLD FURNITURE
in any sense being a fine piece is nevertheless a
very interesting one. If the Esther Hobsonne
chest was housed in London at the time, it
fortunately escaped the Fire of London in 1666,
when so many, now priceless, articles of furniture
were destroyed.
The chest (Fig. 10) which, at the time of writing,
is placed next to the Esther Hobsonne chest
at the Museum was made about the same time.
It is much finer in drawing and design, being in
fact carver's rather than carpenter's work. The
roses in particular are very good, and the whole
scheme is as full of fancy as the execution is of good
workmanship. This coffer has been cleansed of
all varnish, wax, and oil, and the grain of the wood
is clearly revealed. This chest was discovered
in a country place, where it was being used as a
corn-bin. The lid is modern.
We have thought it useful to indicate the
prices at which similar pieces to some of those
illustrated in this book should be purchased. In
olden times, however, furniture was rarely dupli
cated, and as there is no fixed market value for
old furniture, such prices must be accepted by
the reader merely as approximations. They are,
however, founded on the personal experience
of the writers and should be found a fairly satis
factory guide. Pitfalls to the Unwary are the

OLD FURNITURE 29
prices frequently shown on the explanatory
cards placed on the furniture at the Victoria and
Albert Museum. These are, of course, the cost
price at the time the pieces were purchased. In
many cases this was many years ago, and in
addition, museums have exceptional facilities,
many of the dealers all over the country offering
them pieces from time to time. Private persons,
furthermore, are often willing to sell to the
museums at low prices. The figures on the
furniture are, therefore, no guide whatever to
the present market values which, in many cases,
have increased enormously.
There is a bright side to the collection of such
comparatively simple articles as oak chests, which
is, that here the merest amateur stands on
firm ground. The word " fake " is one which
haunts the collector on his travels, dogs his
footsteps into old shops, and bids him stand and
deliver at every cross-road. There is a species
of oak which, from its prevalence in dentists'
waiting-rooms, is known as " dentists' oak," but
it should not deceive a baby. This form of
furniture can scarcely be dignified by the name
ot fake, and, what is more, it rarely takes the
form of a chest or coffer. There are, however,
plenty of what one may term serious attempts
at faking about in the form of cupboards, side-

30 OLD FURNITURE
boards and chairs, but a person of moderate
means has always this advantage over the rich
collector, in that his undoing is scarcely worth
the while of the faker. Particularly is this so in
the case of oak chests. A purchaser of a four-foot
oak chest for, say, four pounds, must know that
in the mere matter of value for money in wood
he cannot be far out. It is very doubtful whether
or not an equally efficient modern chest could be
made for the same money.
The " old " look on an oak chest is almost
impossible to reproduce. It is more than a colour
— it is an atmosphere. New oak can be arti
ficially darkened to any shade from the original
light brown to black by the aid of various solu
tions, and its extreme expression is often seen
in the " dentist's oak " already referred to.
Modern faked oak carving has generally a raw,
sharp look, showing that it and the chisel have not
been long unacquainted. The colour of old oak
is a rich mellow brown — it is rarely black. Occa
sionally old pieces are genuinely black with an
accumulation of oil and dirt, but, as a rule, black
oak should be viewed with suspicion. The work
manship is another point of great importance.
In old times it was good joiner's work, not what
one would term " cabinet-maker's work," and
although carefully composed, the finish is not

OLD FURNITURE 31
exceedingly fine. The sides of the chests were
fastened together by wooden pegs where the
tenon fits into the mortise. These pegs are
sometimes difficult to distinguish from modern
nails, but a slight scraping with a penknife will
at once reveal their existence. As already men
tioned, however, the faker rarely directs his
attentions to oak chests. The business does not pay,
and, moreover, the real old ones are fairly plentiful.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries almost
every home, however humble, must have possessed
at least one oak coffer. Chairs were still com
paratively a luxury for the use of the master or
mistress of the house, joint-stools and benches
usually serving for seats, and the chest, as already
mentioned, was a piece of furniture of many
uses. Chairs came into more general use in the
time of James I., but chests continued for many
years to be popular articles of furniture.
Apart from the form, it is the carving which
makes a chest interesting, and it is well to remark
that there are several classes of carvers. In the
first place we find on an old oak chest (and other
furniture for that matter) the work done by the
aid of proper carving tools by men apparently
highly trained and gifted in that direction. We
find that there was a Guild of Cofferers formed
in the early sixteenth century which probably did

32 OLD FURNITURE
much to bring about the execution of good work.
Although the best work was probably not executed
by the joiner, we find incised work which was
done by the actual joiner who requisitioned the
ordinary tools of his bench. He made thumb
nail groovings by aid of the gouge, small circles
with the stock and bit, larger circles and arcs by
the aid of the stock and bit with adjustable arm,
and he worked the minor details more or less deftly
with the ordinary joiner's chisel. Lower down
in the scale we find something scarcely aspiring
to the dignity of carving, being merely surface
tracery, which in ceramics would be described
as " sgrafitto " or scratched work. Such work
may be classed among the peasant arts, and apart
from their decorative value are interesting as
illustrating the strivings of a sturdy race after
better things.
Two old chests at least should, on account of
both their beauty and utility, find their place in
hall and dining-room, and they will probably
be found the least difficult at a moderate price to
acquire. In the collection of old oak furniture, period
is of little or no consequence. Oak is of one family
and all its members are harmonious. There is
no sense of incongruity in finding in the same
dining-room an Elizabethan table, a Jacobean

Fig. 14. DESK (SIXTEENTH CENTURY)
ON STAND (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 15. BIBLE BOX (EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 16. BIBLE BOX (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 17. CHIP CARVED BOX (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. -18
BOX ON STAND (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. i9
BOX ON STAND (BOX DATED 1660)

Fig. 21

Fig. 22
SIMPLE BIBLE BOXES (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)
(Property of Mr. F. W. Phillips, The Manor House, Hitchin, Herts)

Fig.

Fig. 24
SETTLES (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 25. SETTLE (EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]
(Property of Mr. Waller Withall)

Fig. 26. TABLE SETTLE .(SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

OLD FURNITURE 33
sideboard, a set of Cromwell chairs and an oaken
chest of uncertain antecedents. Old-English
oak furniture owes nothing to the glamour of a
craftsman's name. Our Cathedrals, in rare in
stances, have records of the men whose wonderful
carvings adorn the choir stalls and other church
furniture, but we know nothing of the master
craftsmen who fashioned the domestic chattels
of mediaeval and Stuart times. The same may
be said of walnut — that beautiful wood so
beloved by the worm — intimately associated with
the reign pf Queen Anne. Mahogany, however,
immediately brings to our minds the names of
great craftsmen and designers such as Chippendale,
Heppelwhite, Shearer, Mayhew, and the brothers
Adam. Satinwood, amboyna, tulip, and a host
of other hard woods recall the names of Sheraton
and his followers. Oak has no name to shed a
radiance upon it, but it is hopefully regarded as
emblematical of the national character, it is a
wood of all time and can well stand upon its
own legs.

CHAPTER III: JOINT-STOOLS,
BIBLE BOXES, AND SETTLES
Joint or "joyned" stools are sometimes, but
erroneously, called " coffin " *" stools, it being
suggested that their special use was to bear a
coffin. We have known people refuse to have
them in their house for this reason. The error
has probably arisen from the fact that they are
sometimes seen in churches performing this
solemn office. It is, however, in the last degree
unlikely that in early days, when any article of
furniture was more or less a luxury, that any
single piece had a specialised use. In the
sixteenth century stools were probably in every
room in the house. Chests, as pointed out in the
last chapter, were frequently used as seats, but
" joyned " stools and rude forms were the only
portable seats before chairs were in general use.
No doubt the stools also served as small tables,
and occasionally we find one with a hinge and lid
fulfilling the additional office of a coffer or box.
The ordinary types of " joyned " stools, Figs.
II and 12, are to be found in hundreds scattered
over the country. Occasionally they are to be
picked up at country sales or shops for a few
shillings, but generally they have a more appreci-
34

OLD FURNITURE 35
able value as interesting and useful little pieces for
which the purchase-price is about thirty shillings.
Those of usual form date from Jacobean times
when furniture was becoming more common,
and a great number survive in good condition.
They are plain in form with simple turned legs,
and they are of quite a respectable weight com
pared with a modern oak stool. The frieze is
generally plain, but sometimes roughly shaped
or carved with conventional strapwork or groov-
ings. A plain joint- stool is interesting enough
to possess, although a slight deviation from
the plainness of convention is to be wel
comed. Early joint-stools of the time of Elizabeth are
very rarely to be met with. They are pleasing
and singularly graceful in character, the legs
showing the well-known Elizabethan melon bulb
form in a refined and restrained manner, as well
as a jewel-work decoration.
That the joint-stool was a familiar household
article in Shakespeare's time we have ample
proof, for we find in Romeo and Juliet (Act 1,
Scene v), when Capulet's hall is being cleared for
the dance, the serving man saying, " Away with
the joint-stools, remove the court cupboard,
look to the plate " ; and later on Capulet says
'' turn the tables up " — a reference, no doubt,

36 OLD FURNITURE
to the tresselled tables in common use in Eliza
bethan England. It may be objected that all
this took place in Verona, but Shakespeare, the
presumably untravelled poet, would naturally
furnish his Italian hall with English furniture
just as he peopled his Italian kitchen with
Peter, Gregory, Susan, Nell, and other English-
named scullions.
If any of the old stools — " joyned-stolys " in
old MSS. — were built exclusively as coffin-stools
(and it is quite possible), we may well imagine
they were of the splayed leg variety. These,
with their greater stability, would be more adapted
to support their burden in safety than the more
perpendicularly built ones. We have recently
seen a photograph of a pair of so-called coffin-
stools which a Dorsetshire dealer parted with
for twenty shillings some seven years ago. He
would willingly give as much to-day for a single
stool of the same type, with full certainty of
making a fair profit.
The Charterhouse has a small but interesting
collection of old furniture, including a few solid
oak stools in the scholars' hall, formerly the
dining-room of Sutton's boys before their removal
to Godalming, but now the library of the Carthu
sian Brotherhood. The Convent, built in 1371,
was dissolved by Henry VIII. in 1537. The

OLD FURNITURE 37
property was acquired in 1565 by the Duke of
Norfolk, who constructed a house on the site of
the Little Cloister. The stools, with some
massive oak tables, are said to have been removed
from the older buildings of the Convent. A
photograph of two of these stools (Fig. 13) is
reproduced by kind permission of the Reverend
Master of the Charterhouse, and, judging by their
solid proportions, we can well believe they may
have been nearly two centuries old at the dissolu
tion. Mr. Fred Roe is of opinion that they date
from early Tudor times, i.e. not earlier than
1485. Time has dealt gently with these old
stools in their four (or more) centuries of life,
and with ordinary care they should, and probably
will, last as long again. Everything, however,
must have an end, and like the " Wonderful One-
Hoss Shay," being equally strong in every part,
they may one day, without warning, fall to a heap
of dust. * # # # #
The Bible box has affinity with the oak chest,
but, unlike the latter, its use in the household was
limited. It is usually little larger than the seven
teenth and eighteenth century quarto Bible for
which it was made to contain. An average
size would be about 8 in. high, 2 ft. wide, and
16 in. from back to front. It is usually rather

38 OLD FURNITURE
lightly constructed, and decorated on the front
with conventional carvings corresponding with
the contemporary chests. Occasionally a speci
men is found with a late seventeenth-century
date carved on the front. The locus standi of
the Bible box was usually on the side-table or the
shelf, but occasionally it had a sloping lid and
was mounted on a tall table resembling a stool,
in which case it fulfilled the additional duty of a
reading desk. Fig. 14 at the Victoria and Albert
Museum illustrates the idea, although made
before large quarto Bibles were in use. It is
described as a desk, but as the unevenness of the
surface, arising from the iron bands and fretted
decorations, would preclude its use as a writing
desk we can only assume that it was used as a
reading desk. But for the fact of the sloping
lid we should be inclined to think of it as a small
strong-box or money chest, an idea further borne
out by the iron handle. The internal arrangements
are rather elaborate. At the back is a compart
ment, the lid of which is formed by the horizontal
portion of the top which is hinged to the back
of the desk (the sloping lid is also hinged). This
compartment contains three wells, three drawers,
and a narrow secret recess.
Fig. 15 at the Victoria and Albert Museum is
a carved box, of the early seventeenth century,

OLD FURNITURE 39
decorated with two conventional dolphins hold
ing sprigs of oak with acorns in their mouths.
The dolphin was a favourite form of decoration
of the Henry VIII. period. It is generally sup
posed to be an allusion to the Dauphin of France
at a time when the relations between France
and England were friendly. It continued in
use and was a favourite design on the fronts
of the brass lantern clocks of the seventeenth
century. We give another illustration (Fig. 16)
of a fine specimen of Bible box in the Victoria and
Albert Museum belonging to the seventeenth
century. Both front and sides are boldly carved
with a scroll or double S-design outlined with
small thumbnail grooving. The notched orna
mentation down the edges of the front came
into vogue during Elizabeth's reign and is often
found on the lighter made chests of the period.
In late Jacobean times this scooped moulding
became exaggerated as to be sometimes quite a
disfigurement. This Bible box cost the museum
£4 lis. in 1897; it would be a fair price to-day.
Therey is another Bible box at the museum
(Fig. 17) decorated with " chip " carving and
dated 1648 (on a part not shown in photograph).
This style of carving is familiar to most people.
It is of no particular age or country and has been
practised by savage nations from time immemorial.

40 OLD FURNITURE
Few tools are required, in fact only one, known as
a chip knife, is absolutely necessary, and any
amateur with a firm wrist can with a little prac
tice attain dexterity. The effect mainly depends
upon the careful execution of purely geometrical
designs, and it is rather surprising that com
paratively few old examples are met with. Mr.
Walter Withall, of 18 Bedford Row, London,
has in his collection a beautiful chip-carved
Bible box of similar design to the foregoing,
which he considers undoubtedly English. Inside
the lid is carved the name of Thomas Middleton —
presumably the poet of that name, born 1574,
died 1626.
Fig. 18 is a Bible box on a typical Jacobean
table stand which was probably built some little
time later than the box. Any number of theories
could be advanced to account for the apparent
difference in the style of the two articles. The
carved initials may stand for some worthy farmer
who had a Bible box built by the village joiner.
In course of time, perchance, it and the family
Bible came by inheritance to his son or daughter,
who had moved to a large town. A stand on
more classical lines would be built for it and,
judging by the wear on the tread bar, it was for
many years used as a box and reading desk com
bined. This interesting relic, together with the

OLD FURNITURE 41
little desk (Fig. 19) are the property of Messrs.
Gill and Reigate, who have kindly lent the photo
graphs for reproduction. As in the last case
the stand is again of apparently later date, and
being of no particular age, type, or beauty, need
hardly be taken into account. The desk itself
loses somewhat in appearance by being sunk to
an unnecessary depth into the top of the stand.
The front is carved with a simple tulip decoration,
the name of the owner (Robert Baker), and 1660,
the year of the restoration of Charles II. Mr.
Fred Roe, in his volume, " Old Oak Furniture,"
mentions this desk as having come originally
from Stratford-on-Avon and having probably
been made for one of the Baker family con
nected with the Hathaways of Shottery, one
of whom, it will be remembered, married
Shakespeare. Figs. 20, 21, and 22 represent three Bible
boxes of ordinary country make belonging to the
seventeenth or early eighteenth century, with
conventional incised work scarcely aspiring to the
dignity of carving. These homely boxes have
a decorative value and charm of old-worldliness
often lacking in more pretentious things. Well
preserved Bible boxes of this class have a retail
value of from twenty to thirty shillings, and less
worthy specimens may be obtained at from^ten

42 OLD FURNITURE
to fifteen shillings. Quite recently we saw a
simple Bible box for sale at Sherborne. It was
decorated with an incised floral design dated 1739,
in excellent preservation, with the original lock-
plate complete, and priced at seven shillings and
sixpence. The Vale of Blackmoor on the Dorset
and Somerset borders, the heart of the " Hardy
Country " round Sherborne and Dorchester,
abounds with old-world cottages and farmhouses,
and was, until recently, a happy hunting ground
for the old-oak collector. But the days of great
bargains, thereabouts, are gone by. Fine old
West Country oak chests which, a few years ago,
could be picked up in the Vale for a pound or
two, will to-day find eager purchasers at four
or five pounds, and other articles have advanced
in like manner as to selling values.
It is very probable that many boxes classed as
Bible boxes were constructed to hold deeds and
other papers in households which could not
afford the luxury of a more costly " strong box."
Such boxes, whilst not being burglar proof, were
a sufficient safeguard against prying eyes. Apart
from its original use the Bible box is not to be
despised as a handy article of furniture in our
scheme of decoration*. Mounted on a contem
porary joint-stool, if not on its original pedestal,
it is a pleasing object to the eye and invaluable

OLD FURNITURE 43
for holding the numberless small articles in daily
use in the hall or dining-room.
* # # # #
In Saxon times the settle was more or less a
luxury and probably found only in the greater
houses. It was reserved for the Thane and his
lady, and was placed on the raised da i's over
looking the lowe'r tables in the great hall at which,
on benches and stools, would be seated the guests
and household servants. Then later, when fire
places were in use, the settle might be placed
near the great open fireplace and at right angles
to the hearth. The end farthest away from
the fire was tall enough to form a shelter from
draughts proceeding from badly fitting doors
and unglazed windows. The early settle had
solid ends and tall backs, but as the construction
of the houses improved and draught prevention
was less necessary the backs became lower and the
ends open. This form of settle survived in the
seventeenth and eighteenth-century inglenooks
still occasionally found in farmhouses and country
taverns. We merely mention Saxon and early-
English settles in passing. They are interesting
from an historical point of view, but will surely
not come within the ken of the amateur collector,
who will scarcely find anything of an earlier
make than late Tudor or Jacobean.

44 OLD FURNITURE
In Tudor times settles frequently served both
as seats and coffers. When we remember that
the narrow coffer of early days was used as a seat,
we can well believe that the settle was evolved
from the coffer. On the other hand the coffer
and the settle were coeval, and in some cases the
otherwise waste space beneath the seat of the
settle was probably enclosed for reasons of economy.
It is hardly a point to dogmatise upon. Most
certainly we find the same decoration on the box
settles as on the chests pure and simple. In the
eighteenth century we' find a further develop
ment in the shape of tall, cumbrous cupboards
with settles built on to the lower parts — the
cupboard portion being used for storage
of linen and even flitches of bacon. These
are eminently uncomfortable pieces and scarcely
the seats one would have chosen to sit down
upon for a quiet evening pipe and glass with
a distinct risk of disturbance from a busy
housewife hunting for the family linen.
Figs. 23 and 24, in the possession of Messrs.
Gill and Reigate, are of the ordinary Elizabethan
and Jacobean types of farmhouse settles. They are
of ample proportions and solid make — good for
a further two centuries of life. In one case
(Fig. 24) the tall back is continued downwards
to the floor for the purpose of excluding draughts.

OLD FURNITURE 45
We can imagine this settle placed in the farm
kitchen at right angles to the great fireplace
with its back to the door.
Fig. 25 represents an early seventeenth-century
settle of the Yorkshire type, 5 ft. 8 in. long and
4 ft. 8 in. high, in the collection of Mr. Walter
Withall. It is a piece which at once arrests
the eye. There is nothing strikingly original or
clever in the carved designs, but the whole
structure is full of character. Unlike our modern
pieces of furniture which, turned out by the
hundred in factories, speak nothing of the indi
vidual worker, in this old settle we see the man
in every detail. It was put together in leisurely
fashion — tongued and mortised in simple style
and fastened with oaken pegs. Except for
cracks in three of the panels it is practically as
good as the day it was carried home from the
joiner's shop to the farmhouse or tavern. At
first sight the carving looks quite symmetrical,
but on closer inspection all sorts of little dis
crepancies will be found. Mr. Withall imagines
that the carver, who was also the joiner, started
with the left-hand panel, but by the time he
had arrived at number four he got rather stale and
tired. It evidently stood with the right end
towards the fire, as the right arm shows a great
deal more wear then the left one. The seat has

46 OLD FURNITURE
been polished by nine or ten generations of country
folk who have taken their ease by the fireside.
The present owner has constructed a loose pad
cushion from some pieces of antique stamped
Spanish leather harmonious in tone with the
old brown oak. Mr. Withall rescued this lovable
piece of furniture from an inn at Rippenden,
Yorkshire, at something under four pounds.
This was about fourteen years ago.
Occasionally we find seventeenth-century settles
elaborately carved. An exceptionally fine speci
men, 6 ft. wide, was sold at Christie's in December
1910. The back was carved with grapes and
foliage, and dated 1688, the year of the flight of
James II. to the continent. This specimen of old-
English carved work realised thirty guineas. In
contrast to this, in the same month at Willis'
rooms an old Welsh settee of similar dimensions
with four-divisioned moulded panel back fetched
only four pounds under the hammer.
An interesting form of the box settle known
as the " Monk's Bench " is that which has a
movable high back which, being brought into
horizontal position and resting on the two arms,
forms a table on occasion. The " Monk's Bench,"
as its name would indicate, was in use in pre-
Reformation times, and probably the majority
of them were broken up at the dissolution of the

OLD FURNITURE 47
monasteries in the' reign of Henry VIII. These
composite articles of furniture did not, however,
die out quickly. The tradition was carried on,
and there are examples extant made in the
seventeenth century which never saw the inside
of conventual buildings. Fig. 26 represents
an interesting example of the settle tables. It
is amongst the recent acquisitions at the Victoria
and Albert Museum and was, by the courtesy
of the director and secretary, photographed
expressly for the purpose of illustrating this
book. This settle is said by the authorities
to be of about the date 1650, and the nature of
the carving would bear out this opinion. It is
very long for its width, measuring about 5 ft. 6 in.
by 15 in.
It is interesting to trace the evolution of the
modern settee or reclining couch from the
unrelenting oak settle of early times. The settle
was built merely for seating, and not for reclining
purposes. Our rude and hardy forefathers were
apparently content to take to their beds when
necessary and did not play the semi-invalid on
upholstered couches. The earliest prototype of
the modern upholstered couch is found in the
carved day-bed of Jacobean and Carolean times.
Shakespeare, in Richard III., makes Buckingham
say, " This Prince is no Edward, he is not lolling

48 OLD FURNITURE
on a lewd day-bed." This is, of course, no proof
that day-beds were in use in the days of Richard
III., as Shakespeare would allude to contemporary
furniture just as he would clothe his characters
in Elizabethan garments. At the same time
it is proof enough that day-beds were familiar
objects to the poet, and probably in common use
amongst the fops of the period, and that their
use was considered effeminate.
We have not, in the course of our wanderings,
happened upon any day-beds which we could
point to as dating from the time of Elizabeth.
They are said to have solid ends. We give two
illustrations, however, of day-beds belonging to
the reign of Charles II. , Figs. 27 and 28. In
build they follow the lines of the caned chairs of
the period, and it is not astonishing that such
graceful pieces of furniture, which would adorn
either the hall, dining-room, or drawing-room,
have a current value of from .£30 to .£40. These
Charles II. day-beds are usually made in walnut ;
they have no back or arms, but are provided with
an adjustable head or back-rest supported between
two sloping pillars. It is a difficult matter to
arrange the genus settle in anything like chrono
logical order. In the main it is an article which
essentially " smacks of the soil," and whilst the
more graceful types were being built for the city-

Fig. 27

Fig. 28
DAY BEDS (PERIOD CHARLES THE SECOND)

Fig. 29
GOTHIC SEAT

Fig. 30
ARM-CHAIR (HENRY VIII)

Fig. 31
TYPE OF TURNED CHAIR
(HENRY VIII)

Fig. 32. INLAID CHAIR (ELIZABETHAN)

Fig. 33 Fig. 34
CHILDREN'S CHAIRS (EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

SfglW- M

Fig. 35 Fig. 36
CHAIRS (EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig, 37
THE WENTWORTH CHAIR

Figs. 40, 41 and 42. CROMWELLIAN CHAIRS
(The property of Messrs. Hamptons, Ltd., Pall Mall)

Fig. 43

l.ATF. CROMWELLIAN CHAIRS

Fig. 44

OLD FURNITURE 49
bred folk the older and more solid forms were
still being turned out by the country joiner for
the small squires and yeoman farmers. The
early " walnut age " of the city was the late
" oak age " of the provinces. But even in
country places the settle took on a lighter form
in the early part of the eighteenth century —
particularly in regard to the supports. In speci
mens of about 1720 we find the early form
of cabriole leg supporting an upholstered seat,
but the back is still panelled. It is an easy step
in evolution from this to the shaped or open
back of the walnut settee of which we shall treat
in volume two.
One of the most graceful box settles we have
seen — if such a term as graceful can apply —
is at Knole, Sevenoaks, the seat of Lord Sackville.
It belongs to the reign of William and Mary and
is dated 1693, the year before Mary's death. The
back is divided into no less than six upright
panels ornamented with arched bands of carved
guilloche work.
Knole, which is mainly a Tudor building, is
a veritable storehouse of ancient furniture, com
prising practically all the styles from Henry VIIL
to the eighteenth century. In addition to the
priceless tapestried chairs, stools, and settees of
the Tudor and Stuart reigns, there is a fine collec-

50 OLD FURNITURE
tion of the severer types of oak furniture, con
sisting of settles, coffers, and chests of drawers of
the seventeenth century. A specific charm about
the oak furniture at Knole is the brown tone — a
tone which strikes one at once as being very
apparently genuine. Each piece has the appear
ance of having been varnished when made and the
polishing cloth has done the rest. There is an
entire absence of any staining of the wood or
appearance of stickiness on the surface. As an
object-lesson to the student of furniture of the
period covered by this book an afternoon at
Knole is worth a whole week spent in a museum.
Continuity is the keynote struck in the history
of Knole. William Warham, Bishop of London
and Lord Chancellor of England, resided there
during the years 1502 to 1 5 14 and was visited by
Henry VII. and Henry VIII. Thomas Cranmer
was the next owner (1532-1537) and he built the
chapel which remains in practically its original
state to-day. Cranme*r surrendered the estate
to Henry VIII. who furnished it as a royal
residence, although he never actually lived there.
The square-built, tapestry-covered chairs, the
X-shaped chairs of Venetian design, the tapestries
and the Holbein portraits remain to mark the
Tudor period. Between 1537 and 1603 Knole
was leased by the Crown successively to^John

OLD FURNITURE 51
Dudley Earl of Warwick, Cardinal Pole (the last
of the great clerics to live there), and Sir Robert
Dudley, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, who was
afterwards Earl of Leicester. Subject to certain
leases it was given by Elizabeth to her cousin,
Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, who even
tually came into possession of the house in 1603
(Elizabeth's death year). For rather more than
three centuries it has been the residence of the
Sackville family, and during that period every
English monarch has, at some time or other,
stayed in the house. A bedroom was fitted up for
James I. on the occasion of his visit at a cost of
£20,000 — the bedstead, with its superb hangings,
worked in gold and silver thread, alone costing
£8000. The chairs, stools, cabinets, and silver
dressing table, with complete silver toilette service,
remain as left by the royal visitor.

CHAPTER IV: CHAIRS
Of all articles of furniture the chair presents the
greatest variety. From the oaken chairs of the
Anglo-Saxon and Norman times, of which no
known specimens survive and of which our
knowledge is confined to manuscripts, to the
superb creations of the eighteenth-century
artists, a chain extends of varied fashions
capable of attracting the interest of the most
fastidious. It has already been pointed out that, until
comparatively a late period (probably the age of
Elizabeth), the chair was a construction in the
nature of a luxury. Indeed, the old castles were
so sparsely provided with seating accommodation
that seats were fashioned in the masonry. In
Anglo-Saxon and Norman times the stool and
bench were the common seats, such being the
lot of the retainers who sat in the body of the
hall, whilst the chairs (or settles), the places of
honour for the lord and his lady, were situate
on a raised dais. The scene is vividly painted
in the third chapter of Scott's " Ivanhoe."
These early chairs were no doubt made of oak,
a wood with which England was bountifully
supplied, the present common woods, deal and
52

OLD FURNITURE 53
pine, being rare in those days. To seat armoured
knights as well as Saxon Thanes their construc
tion must have been of the heaviest. An early
oaken chair of great weight and said to be of
Gothic origin is shown (Fig. 29). A somewhat
similar chair is to be seen at the hospital of St.
Cross, near Winchester.
In Henry VIII.'s reign, when the Bible was
first printed in good plain English, and the feudal
system collapsed, the custom of master and ser
vant taking their meals together in one great hall
gave way to the introduction of the parlour or
private sitting-room, although this custom was
at first regarded with some suspicion by the
Church and State as being conducive to seditious
plots. This change, of course, contributed to
greater privacy in family life, and with it came
the desire for comfort in domestic furniture.
In Shaw's " Specimens of Ancient Furniture "
published in 1836, there is illustrated a high-
backed chair of the time of Henry VIII. with
an irregular sexagonal seat (Fig. 30). The out
side panels are of the folded napkin decoration
of the period, whilst the inside panels are carved
with portrait medallions and scrollwork. The
arms protrude from the body of the chair, which
suggests a degree of comfort often absent from
chairs of later periods. At this time a popular

54 OLD FURNITURE
type was the X or currule chair of Venetian
origin. It was not altogether new to England, and
was re-introduced by Italian craftsmen who were
encouraged to settle here in this reign. Fig. 31
shows the^type of^chair used in the bedroom at
this period. The pattern is of Byzantine origin,
and they are sometimes called " thrown " chairs,
being composed of spindles " thrown " or turned
on a lathe. Such chairs, however, could only
have been used at court and in the great houses.
According to Strutt, in his " Manners and
Customs of the English," during the time of
Henry VIII. when so much pomp and grandeur
reigned, and though extravagance in dress, ban
queting, and trains of attendants were the general
habit of life amongst the rich, yet in their homes
the furniture was plain and homely, very limited
in range, and only the most necessary articles were
tolerated. A gentleman's house, for example,
at that period contained probably in the hall :
" a piece of tapestry behind or over the chief
seat or bench at the upper end of the hall, three
tables with forms and tressles mortised in the
ground, and a hawk's perch. In the parlour :
wainscotted walls and a table with forms, three
joint-stools, a plain cupboard, two twined chairs,
three little chairs for women and four footstools,
six tapestry cushions with arms embroidered

OLD FURNITURE 55
in the middle, probably a striped turkey carpet,
andirons with a fire fork in the hearth, and two
small backgammon tables." In the bedrooms
there appears to have been very little besides the
bed with black hangings, a wainscoted cupboard,
and one chair.
In the reign of Elizabeth the standard of com
fort increased considerably, and not only the
grand houses but the houses of the citizens
(who were now people of importance) were more
comfortably furnished. Chairs, however, were
by no means common. Wright, in his " Homes
of Other Days," quotes a description (1570) of a
rich alderman's hall as being furnished with " two
tables with carpets (table-covers), three forms,
one dozen cushions, half a dozen green cushions,
two basins, one chair, and one little chair."
Oak chairs of the Elizabethan period were
simple in shape. The backs were composed of
solid panels inlaid (in the case of fine specimens
as in Fig. 32) with floral decorations of various
choice woods. The solid, panelled oak chairs,
although their decoration varied, continued to be
made for a long period, certainly to the end of
the seventeenth century.
Whatever may be our opinion of the comfort
of the Elizabethan chairs, we must at least
admit they have the advantage of being roomy,

56 OLD FURNITURE
due, no doubt, to the prevailing fashion amongst
the ladies of the farthingale or. hooped petticoat,
the precursor of the more modern crinoline.
The first half of the seventeenth century was a
period famous for its feasting. The chair shown
in the contemporary prints is one of simple shape,
rather stunted in appearance, with an upholstered
seat and back. These chairs at meals were placed
down the sides of a long table, and in the centre
was a large salt-cellar for the use of the guests.
The inferior personages sat at the lower end of
the table and the more important at the higher
end nearer the host. In this way arose the phrase
" Sitting above the salt," which was, of course,
the place of honour at the board.
Elaborately upholstered chairs and other furni
ture of the period of Charles I. and the succeeding
reigns may be seen at Knole House, Sevenoaks,
the seat of Lord Sackville, with all the advantages
of original surroundings. Knole House is open
to the public on Thursdays and Saturdays from
2 to 5 and on Fridays io to 5 on payment of two
shillings each person. Furniture of the great
houses of this period depended largely upon
upholstery for its decoration and shows the
Italian influence. Charles I.'s Queen, Henrietta
Marie, was herself of the Medici family. The
X-shaped chairs at Knole House are typically

OLD FURNITURE S7
Venetian, and probably the work of Italian
craftsmen resident in England, either freshly
imported or descendents of the workmen brought
here in the time of Henry VIII. The furniture
of the great houses had now become luxurious
and costly. Stowe, in his chronicle of the life
of James I. refers to the cushions and window-
pillows of velvet, damask, &c. (as indeed they may
be seen at Knole House at the present day).
The custom of luxury had, however, spread to
other classes, as he remarks that such decorations
" in former times were only used in the houses
of the great princes and peers of the land, though
at this day those ornaments of estate and other
princely furniture be very plenteous in most
citizens' houses, and many other of like estate."
Oaken chairs, similar in their character, were
made for a long period, at least to the end of the
seventeenth century, and owing to their family
resemblance are difficult to arrange in chrono
logical order. Figs. 33 and 34 show two early
seventeenth -century children's chairs which are
rarely met with. The one with the high foot-rest
is boldly carved with conventional floral designs,
and the other with five rosettes with inter
twining bands. Figs. 35 and 36 are two arm
chairs of about the same period and have again
a strong family likeness, although it will be noticed

58 OLD FURNITURE
that one of them has brackets or " ears" under
the cornice. Fig. 37 is the chair known as the
" Wentworth," bearing the arms of Thomas
Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford, and the date
of this would be the first half of the seventeenth
century. Wentworth was a notable apostate in
the time of the first Charles who sold his talents
and influence to the King for power and title.
There is little doubt but that this chair has been
tampered with. The lower panel in the back is
out of keeping with the rest of the chair, and
particularly with the top panel containing the
arms of the owner. It is believed that the
lower panel has been inserted, thus raising the
back to an abnormal height. The piecing of
the styles is easily discernible on inspection at the
Victoria and Albert Museum where the chair may
be seen. Fig. 38 is of a somewhat later date and
there is no reason to doubt the carved figures
1670. It is a more imposing and important
piece of the time of Charles IL, the carved
stretcher being a noticeable and typical feature.
Fig. 39 is a simple specimen of a seventeenth-
century chair. The back panel is decorated with
a survival of the Tudor rose and the top with the
suggestion of the round arch. As the condition
of the flooring improved, it was no longer necessary
that the front braces of the chairs should be in

OLD FURNITURE 59
such a low position that the feet could rest upon
them to escape disagreeable contact with the floor,
and the position or absence of this front brace
is somewhat of a guide to their period. Heavy
and low underframing in a chair certainly
suggests an early period. In the present example
this has been dispensed with, which suggests that
it belongs to the later end of the seventeenth
century. Similar chairs to Fig. 39 should be
purchasable for about twelve pounds. These old
oak chairs, mortised and tenoned and fixed with
oaken pegs, seem to be almost indestructible.
The revolution which culminated in the
Commonwealth in 1649 brought about a change
in the extravagant living and luxurious furniture
of the previous reigns, and the reaction was
carried to one extreme as it was to the other on
the restoration of the Monarchy. The living
became simpler and also the furniture, although
it must always be remembered that furniture of
the common people could have shown little or no
relationship at any time to the elaborate articles
of the great houses. Spiral turnery appeared
in English furniture at this time. It came to
England via Holland, but its origin is very far
back, as there is an ancient Egyptian chair in the
British Museum of ebony turned on the lathe.
The chairs which are familiarly known as the

60 OLD FURNITURE
" Cromwell" (Figs. 40, 41, and 42) are of Dutch
origin. They are squatly built, with leather backs
and seats and twisted rails. Such are amongst the
few antique chairs serviceable for a dining-room,
and should be purchased, say, for four guineas
each. They are very typical of the simplicity
of the Cromwellian period, and their restraint
approaches austerity. In a dining-room, however,
they will harmonise with any old oaken furniture
as they are singularly interesting and unobtrusive.
They are frequently covered with modern cowhide,
although, of course, it is immensely preferable to
obtain them in their original leather so long as
it is not too far perished. In fact, a re-covered
chair of this class is very like Othello without the
Moor. With the disappearance of the original
leather its character has, to a large extent,
departed. Figs. 43 and 44 show late Cromwell
chairs suggesting the transition to the lighter
structures of the next period. No. 44 is parti
cularly interesting as it shows the cherub-head
decoration of the next period grafted on to a
plain Cromwellian chair.
The tall chair, cane backed and cane seated,
generally dates from the period succeeding the
Commonwealth (Charles II. and James IL).
These tall, slender chairs are extremely decorative
in a hall or even a drawing-room, but they are

OLD FURNITURE 61
ill adapted for hard wear, as pressure on the back
places undue leverage upon the frame and is apt
to lead to disastrous results. Such chairs, admir
able to look upon, should be chosen with care
and treated with the greatest respect. In a hall
or drawing-room, however, they are never out
of place in any scheme of decoration in which
oak is to be the prevailing factor. These chairs
suggest the somewhat misplaced enthusiasm which
the nation expressed at the restoration of the
Monarchy. The form is not English, being
brought over from the continent by Charles II.
and his courtiers on their return from exile.
Nothing could be more in contrast to the
Cromwell chairs recently referred to. We find
the backs and stretchers surmounted by crowns
and cupids, the crowns standing for the royal
house and the cupids seem to suggest the
decidedly amorous tendencies of the age. The
scroll form of carving was now general, and the
carved stretcher was introduced with scrolls of
acanthus. Cane backs in some form or other
are ordinarily found, but the backs are some
times composed of splats, which are again
sometimes upholstered in velvet.
Figs. 45, 46, and 47 show three caned-backed
Stuart chairs. In No. 45 the back terminates
in a hooped scroll. No. 46 is a charming chair

62 OLD FURNITURE
with gracefully pierced cresting, bulbous stretcher
and depressed scroll feet. No. 47 is more elaborate.
The narrow caned panel in this example is
particularly pleasing. The legs are scrolled in
the pattern of an S, and the cresting and stretcher
are pierced and carved. The first two chairs
were sold for four guineas each and the third for
six. Fig. 48 is a Stuart chair with arms ; it was
sold for £25. These chairs are rarer than the
single ones. Fig. 49 is a chair with spiral rails,
and is decorated with cherubs on the cresting
and stretcher. It has been re-covered over the
old caning. This interesting chair was sold for
fifteen guineas.
Fig. 50 is a fine Charles chair which will,perhaps,
scarcely come within the scope of the ordinary
collector. In it the crown and its supporting
cupids are clearly shown, the latter being in full
figure instead of in head and encircling wings as
in Fig. 49. The whole effect is rich and grace
ful in the extreme. Fig. 5 1 is a child's chair of
the period of Charles II. recently added to the
collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The pierced holes in the legs are for a gradu
ated foot-rest, which is missing. Any collector
would be fortunate in finding another such a
chair. It cost the museum £30.
These chairg seem to suggest a gaiety of

OLD FURNITURE 63
disposition, and typify the revulsion from the
plainness of the Cromwellian homes. Amongst
the Puritans, as Green says, " it was superstitious
to keep Christmas or to deck the home with holly
and ivy — or to dance round the Maypole — or
to eat a mince-pie." It was scarcely to be
expected that in such an atmosphere of austerity
decorative woodwork would express itself in
fancy. We read that in 1660 a Puritan wrote :
" Sir, the country as well as the town abounds
with vanities, now the reigns of liberty and
licentiousness are let loose. Maypoles and players
and jugglers, and all things else pass current.
Sin now appears with a brazen face."
The chairs known as Yorkshire or Derbyshire,
after the places of their birth, are objects of
considerable interest and utility. Two excellent
specimens are shown (Figs. 52 and 53), one with
the familiar split-balustrade decoration and
drops, and the other with round arches and
inverted drops. These chairs belong to the
second half of the seventeenth century and are
very interesting and serviceable in a dining-room
or hall, and simple specimens are not expensive.
From the accession of Charles II. walnutwood
was employed in preference to oak and became
the fashion, because it was found that carvings
and turnings in walnut were less liable to chip.

64 OLD FURNITURE
Most of the fine chairs of the period of Charles II.
and James II. (viz. from 1660 to 1688) were com
posed of walnut, although they are very generally
described as oak. The point, however, is of
very little importance, as the flight of ages has left
such deposits upon them that their colour has
become such that they are in perfect harmony
with oaken furniture. They are to be found in the
halls of the great houses of the period and are
admirably set off by oak panelling. Chairs of this
class decorated with crowns or cupids (or both)
are expensive, but simple examples may be pur
chased as already suggested at moderate prices.
Mr. Percy Macquoid,in his monumental work on
English furniture, divides the subject into " ages,"
viz. " Oak," " Walnut," "Mahogany," and " Satin-
wood." It would be difficult to invent a happier
classification, but, at the same time, it is in the
nature of things that we find a good deal of over
lapping when we closely inquire into the nature
of materials used by old-time furniture makers.
The mediaeval and Tudor furniture which has
survived is mostly of oak, and we still think
of the same wood when we come to the Stuart
period. Certainly, in Stuart times, the majority
of the heavier pieces of furniture such as tables,
bedsteads, and court cupboards were constructed
of oak, but it is a common error to suppose that

Fig. 45

(Property of Mr

Fig. 46
CHAIRS (STUART PERIOD)
F. W. Phillips, The Manor House Hitchin, Herts)

Fig. 48
ARM-CHAIR (STUART PERIOD)

Fig. 49
CHERUB CHAIR (STUART PERIOD)

Fig. 50. FINE CHAIR (STUART PERIOD)
(The property of Mr. C.J. Charles, 27 BrookStreet, W.)

IG. 51. CHILD'S CHAIR (STUART PERIOD)

. **^H ^^^H ^v
¦ ¦¦
-¦iiBflu

1

, : .. . : '-
\i. - -r- ..*.-.--!: - ----- _:z"_.i_-_ __¦
w 

V, ,J *«-«W.«>w»»%.*i»*.«^'

¦ » 1
u. M

1

Fig. 52 Fig. 53
YORKSHIRE OR DERBYSHIRE CHAIRS
(SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 54.
OAK CHAIR (LATE SEVEN
TEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 55. OAK TABLE AND BENCH (SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

FIG. <6. TABLE LEG (SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 57. ELIZ\RETHAN DRAW-TABLE

Fig. 58. ELIZABETHAN INLAID TABLE (LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

OLD FURNITURE 65
the ornate carved chairs of the middle Stuart
period were all of oak. As already mentioned, the
majority of them were of walnut. So long as chairs
were built in straight lines with panelled backs,
and the carvings were in comparatively low relief,
oak was an all-sufficing material to work in. With
the introduction of twisted legs, shaped rails, and
richly carved backs, a wood less liable to fracture
was needed. Walnut had long been in use for
furniture-making in Italy, France, and Spain,
and doubtless the English makers took their cue
from the continental craftsmen. We leave it
to others to sift the causes from the effects and
decide how far the new wood gave scope to the
carver or how the evolution in style called for
the more suitable material.
The walnut-tree is not indigenous to England,
nor to any western European country for that
matter. It was introduced from Persia into Italy
at about the commencement of the Christian era
and is thought to have been brought to England
during the Roman occupation. One of the
two best -known kinds is the black walnut (Juglans
Nigra) of America, which is largely used there and
in this country — so much so that it is rapidly
becoming scarce. The other is the Juglans
Regia, a native of the mountain regions of Greece,
Armenia, Afghanistan, North-West Himalayas

66 OLD FURNITURE
and Japan, and now largely cultivated in
most temperate climates. This is the walnut-
tree introduced to us by the Romans; but it
was not until the reign of Elizabeth that it
was extensively planted, and even then pro
bably more with a view to the nuts than
to the timber. By the middle of the seven
teenth century these trees were coming to
maturity and were utilised for the new style of
furniture. Few, if any, of the graceful tall-backed chairs
were made as early as the Puritan interregnum.
They came in about 1660 with the restoration of
Charles II. when popular taste in art ran riot
after the austerities of the preceding decade,
and continued through the brief reign of
James II. and well into the days of William and
Mary — roughly, till the death of Mary in 1694.
With the Orange-Nassau accession the Dutch
influence in furniture began to gain ascendency,
and we find chairs of the last decade of the
seventeenth century with distinct foreshadowing
of Queen Anne types. The perpendicular legs
were giving way to the early " cabriole " with
club feet — the carved and caned backs were
replaced by vase-shaped splats, and the flat,
fixed seats by heavy framings with movable
stuffed seats. Fig. 54 shows an oak chajr of the

OLD FURNITURE 67
late seventeenth century in which the vase splat
asserts itself.
As William and Mary and Anne are historically
the last of the Stuarts the chairs and other
furniture of their reigns have some claim for
recognition in the present volume, but a better
claim for fuller treatment in volume two
covering these reigns and generally known as the
" Walnut Period."
On the subject of chairs, there is one confession
which might have been made at the outset.
Most of the types of antique chairs dealt with in
this chapter are not advisable for the traffic of
a modern dining-room. They are not, in such
circumstances, treated with either respect or
consideration and, with the exception of the
Cromwell or the Yorkshire and Derbyshire
types, are best relegated to positions of equal
honour but less strain.
There was, a few years ago, in the North of
England, a man who was by way of being a
dealer in old furniture, but who, judging by his
methods, was scarcely in the way of making a
fortune. He had a small shop in a small town,
but, as our experience went, the shop was generally
closed and the proprietor was scouring the country
on a bicycle in search of treasures, and in his
absence, as he had no partner and no assistant, the

68 OLD FURNITURE
business looked after itself. Furthermore, when he
had possessed himself of a piece that pleased him
he was very loth to part with it. It was certainly
possible, however, to find him sometimes in his
little shop, which was always in a dreadful disorder,
and he would also take you across his yard into a
large barnlike shed which was a perfect shambles
of limbs of furniture. There were bunches of
legs of chairs, scraps of carving, panels, and
dilapidations of all sorts, as well as articles more
or less complete. He had a decided turn for
restoration and, as he used genuine old wood for
the purpose and frankly stated this fact, there
was very little to complain of. His particular
affection was for chairs, and when he had happened
on one which pleased him, we have seen him
standing over it in his shop pulling contem
platively at a little tufted beard with one hand
and with the other stroking the wood with a
benign and fatherly expression on his face
saying : " Now here's a nice little fellow just
come home, as sound as the day he was born, a
pretty little chap, and here's his own twin
brother. No, I don't want to sell them. They
are two little Yorkshire fellows. I am a York-
shireman myself and I won't sell my own flesh
and blood."

CHAPTER V: TABLES
It would require a very nice historical sense to
decide which in the evolution of furniture came
first, the table or the chair. In their early
states in Great Britain they must have been
equally primitive, equally uncomfortable, and are,
from the present point of view of the collector,
equally unobtainable.
The table, as a fact, presents a far more limited
field for the operations of fancy and ingenuity
than does the chair. The top of the dining-
table, even in early days, was covered by a
cloth and its legs are more or less in the shadow,
so that it offers rather a restricted field to the
decorative artist.
In Saxon times the table was merely a board
placed on trestles (hence our modern expression,
" board and lodging "). They were placed away
from the centre of the hall for the reason that
the lord and his vassals might sit with their backs
to the wall and present their faces to any enemy
who chanced to break in upon their privacy.
The raised dais probably came after when a
trifle more security of dwelling was assured. We
also find tbe round table, even in very early
times. It was conducive (as we know to-day) to
69

jo OLD FURNITURE
conviviality, especially in days when hospitality
was a national virtue and no stranger within the
gates was ever refused a seat at the board.
In Norman times the large tables in the hall
were sometimes fixed — that is, the trestles were
fastened to the board as a permanent fixture,
a bar running from trestle to trestle as a support
for the purpose of strengthening the whole.
Chaucer, who lived from 1340 to 1400, writes of :
" His table, dormant in his halle always
Stood redy, covered al the longe day."
Fig- 55 is an old-oak table and bench from
Ilminster, Somerset, belonging to the sixteenth
century, purchased in 1908 by the Victoria and
Albert Museum. They are interesting as show
ing the Gothic influence, their construction
possessing the charming simplicity of the Gothic
furniture, such things being " made by a man for
a man, not by a machine for an unit of popu
lation." The trestle table persisted for a great many
years. In a will dated 1570 we find a legacy
consisting of " one table, with a payer of tressels,
and a thicke form." We have seen that the
private parlour came into fashion in Henry VIII.'s
reign, but the great hall continued in use for a
long time for the purpose of banquets and

OLD FURNITURE 71
entertainment. Minstrels and jongleurs were
popular, and mummers or masked buffoons went
from house to house performing a sort of play,
generally on the subject of St. George and the
Dragon. The great hall was a stage which had
tobe quickly cleared, and the trestle-table therefore
was a convenient article. In Shakespeare's plays,
although the action may take place in various
foreign countries the furniture is British, and we
find references to the trestle-table, as in Romeo
and Juliet : " Come, musicians, play !
A hall ! a hall ! Give room and foot it girls.
More light, ye knaves, and turn the tables up."
Fig. 56 is the end of a table, the property of
Mr. Walter Withall, and is believed to date from
the early part of Henry VIII.'s reign, and is pro
bably a link between the early trestle-table and the
melon-bulb table of the Elizabethan period.
It was purchased by Mr. Withall in Westmore
land. Apparently the early melon-bulb tables
had only one leg each end ; one such table is
illustrated in Sander's book, published in 1883,
as being in Beningbrough Hall, Yorks. Mr.
Withall's table, whilst retaining the Gothic
influence, foreshadows the richer tables of the
later period. - . .

72 OLD FURNITURE
The magnificent melon-bulb withdrawing
tables of Elizabeth's reign (Fig. 57) which we
see in the museums, and occasionally in private
houses and even in use as Communion tables
in churches, are scarcely to be acquired by the
ordinary collector, except, perhaps, in their
simpler forms. Their decoration is almost opu
lent in its richness, expressing the influence
in England of the Italian Renaissance, many of
the tables being, no doubt, the productions of
Italian workmen resident here. An artist, in
considering the possibilities of his work as applied
to an oak table, would conclude that his only
chance would be. to embellish the supports, as the
top or board would necessarily be a level surface,
and for the purposes of dining covered with a
cloth. The legs of the Elizabethan tables were
turned on the lathe, and then carved in the form
of a melon highly embellished with decoration.
They were also, in order to produce great richness
of effect, built up with applied carvings. The
top stretcher of the table is sometimes decorated
with inlay (Fig. 58). The legs themselves are
carved with bunches of grapes and acanthus, and
the top of the bulb with a jewelwork decoration.
The mechanism of the withdrawing table is as
follows : To the underside of each extending
portion are fixed two long runners or brackets

OLD FURNITURE 73
which jut backwards and are gradually deeper
in the direction of their projection. These
runners cause the extending slabs to rise as
they are pulled out. The central piece is not
quite fixed, but is held loosely in position by
two pins with heads projecting downwards
through holes in a fixed piece under the centre.
These pins allow a little play in a vertical direc
tion, which obviates any scraping or jamming
as the leaves are drawn out. When the leaves
are fully extended the central portion drops auto
matically to the same plane. The leverage of
the graduated runners is borne by a solid board
fixed beneath the middle of the table top.
The foregoing description applies to the more
usual form of draw-table. There is another
variety in which the extending leaves are each
exactly half the length of the main table top.
Obviously, when tucked away beneath they must
meet exactly in the middle of the upper portion.
In such cases the supporting brackets are not
graduated in depth. The leaves do not rise
as they are pulled out, and when they are fully
extended the middle portion drops to the level of
the extensions and the table is then doubled
in length.
It is rather extraordinary that the principle
of the draw-table is not more in use at the present

74 OLD FURNITURE
time as it is a simple and effective method of
extending a dining-room table. Probably the
fashion of the round table has contributed to its
disuse. In the hall of the Worshipful Company of
Carpenters in London Wall, City, is a rare and
charming little octagonal table (Fig. 59) which,
although dated 1606, three years after the Great
Queen's death, is a pure example of the Eliza
bethan influence. The melon bulbs are reduced
and restrained to harmonise with the conception
of a small table, and the round arches interspacing
the legs contribute to an effect singularly graceful
and pleasing. The cross-pieces attached to the
foot-rests are a modern addition for the purpose
of support. The table, in addition to the date,
also bears the following initials on the arches :
R. W., G. I., J. R,, and W. W., which, as the
records of the Company show, stand for Richard
Wyatt, Master of the Company, 1605 ; George
Isack, Senior Warden, 1605 ; John Reeve, Middle
Warden, 1605 ; William Willson, Junior Warden,
1605. No doubt the table was commenced in
1605 to commemorate the year of office of these
gentlemen, and delivered in 1606. This well-
authenticated piece of furniture is a delightful
example of its period and we are indebted to the
Clerk of the Company and to Captain Drummond,

OLD FURNITURE y$
M.V.O., Past Master, for information regarding
it. The' Carpenters' Company is one of the few
City Guilds which is faithful to the object of its
institution, and carries on by lectures and other
means the educational work of its founders.
The ground-bar in these old tables was very
necessary for the purpose of a foot-rest, owing to
the rush-strewn floors which, although on festive
occasions mixed with flowers, were generally in a
highly insanitary condition. The passage in
Henry IV. (Part I, Act l) should not be taken
too literally :
" She bids you on the wanton rushes lay
you down,
And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you."
A quaint reference to the condition of the
floorings is noted by Strutt under so late a date
as 1706. " In former times," it runs, " our
ancestors used to strew their floors with rushes,
which were carefully spread over the floor until
the use. of carpets came into fashion. But the
modern method (where carpets cannot be
afforded) is to use sand in place of rushes which,
in my opinion, is a very disagreeable custom,
for the dust arising when the sand is thoroughly
dry, is very inconvenient and troublesome."

76 OLD FURNITURE
Although the condition of the flooring gradually
improved, the ground-bar or foot-rest persisted
for many years.
The melon bulb gradually disappeared after
the reign of Elizabeth. Fig. 60 shows a late
Elizabethan table in which the bulb is elongated
in form and is altogether of a plainer description.
Like the former specimen, it is a draw-table, the
two ends extending on brackets. It will be
noticed that the foot-rest is much worn. The
melon bulb reappears in the seventeenth century
in the form of a ball in the centre of the leg,
a bare and melancholy survival of its Elizabe
than prototype. During the Commonwealth all
carving appears to have departed from the legs
of tables, and the ground lost never appears to
have been quite regained.
The conditions of life were changing. The
lord and his serfs had gone. The great hall,
with its entertainments by mummers and min
strels, had largely given place to more public
entertainments in theatres. The sense of social
life had spread itself through the people, and
after the sobering influences of the Common
wealth there came with the restoration of the
Monarchy a period during which all classes looked
around eagerly for amusement.
Although small tables were in use in Elizabeth's

OLD FURNITURE 77
reign for chess and backgammon, the general
making of small and light tables was no doubt
coincidental with the introduction of tea as a
beverage into England. Tea was first brought to
England during the first half of the seventeenth
century, and Cromwell is said to have been amongst
the first to taste it. From about 1660 it gradually
grew in popularity, although its price at first,
varying from five to ten guineas per pound, would
affright the modern housekeeper. In this year
Pepys wrote : " I did send for a cup of tea (a
China drink) of which I had never drunk before,"
and again, "... home, and there find my wife
making tea, which Mr. Pelling the Pothicary tells
her is good for her cold and defluxions." Social
manners and customs, together with the costume
of the day, have always had a definite determining
influence upon the styles of furniture. The
drinking of tea, coffee, and cocoa, and the con
sequent sociability engendered, appears to have
determined the development of the table from
the heavy draw arid refectory table into the
lighter pieces of the later Stuarts. A small
table of the Cromwellian period is, however,
shown (Fig. 61), but this is made to stand against
a wall and certainly does not give the impression
of sociability. In addition to the drinking of
the above beverages, card playing (originally

78 OLD FURNITURE
introduced into England as far back as the
fifteenth century) became the vogue during the
reigns of the later Stuarts and further increased
the demand for small tables. Fig. 62 is a type of late
Stuart table of graceful form, the X-shaped tie or
stretcher and bulbous feet being pleasing features.
It should be purchasable for about five pounds.
Fig. 63 is a chair table of the middle of the
seventeenth century which, like most composite
pieces of furniture, has little merit to recommend
it. It is particularly uncomfortable either as a
table or a chair, and is inadequate for either
purpose, but it is interesting from its rarity.
Although folding-tables were known in early
times the " gate-leg," which is familiar to every
one, dates only from the seventeenth century,
most of the examples being from the time of
Charles II. and later. It is the standard type
of light oak table, and has continued to be made
in numbers to this day. Its name is sufficiently
descriptive, and unlike the Elizabethan draw-table
its mechanism requires no elaborate descrip
tion. Genuinely old examples are not difficult
to find, the smaller tables being rarer are
proportionately more expensive than the large
ones. A simple example, say 4 ft. by 3 ft., is
purchasable for little more than a new one, say five
pounds. A large gate-leg table is suitable for a

OLD FURNITURE 79
dining-room. Admittedly the legs are a trifle diffi
cult to avoid in the case of a party, but with a little
give and take this difficulty is easily surmountable.
An advantage of the gate-leg is that it presents
the appearance of lightness which is very often
absent from the solid dining-room table, and
this effect, especially in a small room, is an impor
tant factor. The facility with which it folds
into a small space is also a useful feature. Between
meal times, when the cloth is removed, it is an
exceedingly decorative article, the old wood
giving a fine tone, and for a bowl of flowers there
is no more effective setting.
Fig. 64 is an early form of gate-leg dating
from the first half of the seventeenth century,
the moulding on the side supports and the
suggestion of carving being unusual features.
Gate-leg tables vary in detail, although
always showing a strong family likeness. Fig. 65
shows the ordinary type. Fig. 66 is a rarer type in
which the underframing folds up, allowing the top,
which is one piece, to fall flat. When closed,
therefore, it is almost a negligible quantity. The
present example, which is 2 ft. 7 in. by 2 ft., was
sold for five pounds. Fig. 6j, which is larger,
being 4 ft. 9 in. by 4 ft. 6 in., has charming " barley
sugar " legs and is quite large enough for an
ordinary dining-room, was sold for ten guineas.

80 OLD FURNITURE
Fig. 68, although of ordinary type, has the
advantage of historical associations. It was
presented to the Guildhall Museum by Mr.
R. M. Kerr and bears the following inscription :
" Sir Matthew Hale and the other Judges
sat at this table in Clifford's Inn to determine
the disputes respecting property, which arose
after the Great Fire of London, A.D. 1666.'

>>

Fig. 59. ELIZABETHAN OCTAGON TABLE (DATED 1606)

1 : 3

Fig. 60. DRAW-TABLE (EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 6i. SMALL CROMWELLIAN TABLE

FIG. 62. STUART RECTANGULAR TABLE

Fig. 63. CHAIR TABLE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 64. GATE-LEG TABLE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

FIG. 65. GATE-LEG TABLE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 66. GATE-LEG TABLE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 67. GATE-LEG TABLE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 68. GATE-LEG TABLE IN GUILDHALL MUSEUM LONDON
(SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 69. DOLE CUPBOARD OR ALMERY (ABOUT 1500)

Fig. 70. FOOD HUTCH (SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 71. LIVERY CUPBOARD (DATED 1663)

CHAPTER VI: CUPBOARDS,
DRESSERS, AND CHESTS OF
DRAWERSIn the scheme of our old-oak room the choice ¦
of a cupboard buffet or dresser will furnish much
food for thought. An important article of this
calibre is not to be chosen haphazard and without
due consideration both to its usefulness and
artistic merit.
Although, strictly speaking, anything in the
nature of a dresser or cupboard earlier than the
sixteenth or seventeenth century is scarcely
within the scope of this volume, it is interesting
to know something of those used in earlier days.
In Saxon and early Norman times, when the
majority of the houses were built of wood, the
thinness of the walls would not allow for excavated
cupboards or store-closets, and any such receptacle
formed part of the movable furniture of the room.
In the castles and few stone-built houses, however,
which have survived, we have ample evidence of
cupboards built in the thickness of the walls.
The armoire of the Middle Ages was a recep
tacle for the principal belongings of the two
ruling classes, viz. the vestments and plate of the
i 81 F

82 OLD FURNITURE
churchmen and the arms of the soldiers. Fine
specimens of such cupboards are to be seen,
amongst^otherjplaces, at York Minster and St.
Albans Abbey. '¦ , rl ,
The credence has affinity with the various
forms of dresser and court cupboard. It was
both domestic and ecclesiastical. In the latter
case it was a name given to a structure which
stood near the altar as a receptacle for the
elements and vessels of the sacred office. The
domestic credence was a side-table or dresser
from which the viands were served, and it was
the duty of the steward to taste each dish before
serving as guarantee of good faith against poison.
In this connection there is some significance in
the term credence. These credences were some
times furnished with enclosed cupboards below
to hold broken food and shelves above to hold
plate. Mr. Thomas Wright, in his " Homes of Other
Days," tells us that the dresser (dressoir) was
the only important article of furniture beside
the tables and benches in the baronial hall.
It was used for the display of the silver plate
which, in some cases, was very extensive.
Edward I. gave to his daughter Margaret, on
her marriage with the Duke of Brabant, forty-six
silver drinking-cups with feet, six wine pitchers,

OLD FURNITURE 83
four ewers for water, four basins with gilt escutch
eons, six great silver entremets, one hundred
and twenty smaller dishes, one hundred and
twenty salts, one gilt salt for the lady's own use,
seventy-two spoons, and three silver spice plates
and a spice spoon.
The display of such an elaborate service would
indeed require the use of a " table of degrees "
of the first magnitude — one of five tiers built for
a royal personage.
Mr. W. H. Hackett, in his volume " Decorative
Furniture," gives us some interesting notes on
the table of degrees, a piece of furniture
designed solely for the display of plate. On the
continent the etiquette in connection with such
things was strict. For the wife of a banneret
the table would have two steps, for a countess
three, for a princess four, and five for a queen.
Whatever the rule may have been at first in
England the etiquette was somewhat relaxed in
Tudor times, and we learn that when Cardinal
Wolsey entertained the French Ambassadors at
Hampton Court he set up his table of degrees
six stages high for the display of his gold plate.
Henry VIII. went one stage better when receiving
the Ambassadors at Greenwich, and at later ban
quets excelled himself with tables of from nine to
twelve stages. The table of degrees of the Gothic

84 OLD FURNITURE
periods in its ornamentation followed the archi
tecture of the time. The illustration which
Mr. Hackett gives shows the table of degrees
to consist of a series of polygonal shelves built
round a central pillar and decreasing in size as they
ascend. The structure is therefore pyramidal in
outline and to some extent resembles the beautiful
tall Gothic font-covers found in some of our old
churches. Such elaborate pieces had no place
in the domestic economy of the middle and lower
classes. Comparatively rare even in those days,
it goes without saying that they are now, from
the collector's point of view, practically non
existent. When, later on, -,the table of degrees grew
into the more composite court cupboard,
furniture was made in increasing quantities and
existing specimens are comparatively plentiful. In
mediaeval times the poorer classes lived meanly
and had little furniture beyond rude tables,
stools, and chests. They themselves counted
little in the scheme of things, judging by the fact
that in mediaeval literature we find but few
allusions to the habits and customs of humbler
folk, whereas, on the contrary, the chroniclers
of the time never seem to weary in their des
criptions of the feastings, revelries, and junketings
of the nobles. According to a moral poem of

OLD FURNITURE 85
the fourteenth century the labourers of France
had little to eat beside bread, garlic and salt, with
water to drink. Probably the standard of living in
England at the time was only a little, if any, better.
To say the least it was far removed from luxury.
The terms dresser, buffet, sideboard, cup
board, court cupboard, and credence, as applied
to old furniture, seems to have been interchang-
able. Each and every piece bearing such names
had manifold uses for holding or displaying food,
drink, plate, and in some cases wearing apparel.
Each term has very similar if not quite identical
meaning. Cupboard is self-apparent, a board
for cups ; but it came in time to mean an enclosed
space to hold almost anything. Dresser
(French, dressoir), strictly speaking, would mean
a table on which in the kitchen, food would be
prepared, but was, in the dining-hall, an addenda
to the main table. Sideboard again is self-
apparent, and buffet is but the French
equivalent. Court cupboard again is derived
from the French (court, short), and denotes a
low cupboard on which plate could be placed
at a convenient height for handling. The
livery cupboard had a more specific use.
The term is derived from the French livree
(something given out at stated times and in
stated quantities). At first the livery cupboard

86 OLD FURNITURE
was used to contain the broken food left over
from the meal to be distributed to the poor at the
gate. Afterwards it became the receptacle for
the rations of the servants, and not for their
clothes as might be assumed from the modern
meaning of the word. Servants' " livery " was
also said to be " served up for all night — that is,
their evening's allowance for drink." Then
again, there were bedroom livery cupboards of
smaller sizes, which would contain food to be
consumed between the only two set meals in
the twenty-four hours, viz. supper at five or six
in the afternoon and dinner at nine, ten, or
eleven in the forenoon. The word livery has
fallen into disuse in modern English in connec
tion with servants' food, but has been retained
in connection with their clothes, and the baiting or
hiring of horses at a stated charge at livery stables.
The " livery," " dole," and other food cup
boards — the smaller ones generally known as
" hutches " — were, as a rule, ventilated either by
the panels being partly composed of laths or
turned pillars, or by means of small drilled holes ;
such holes, being often arranged in patterns,
added a touch of decoration.
Fig. 69 at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
represents a dole cupboard or almery of about the
year 1500, ventilated by pierced Gothic work.

OLD FURNITURE 87
The term " dole " would imply that such a
cupboard would have contained food dispensed
at an endowed charitable institution such as the
well-known hospital of St. Cross, near Winchester,
where, to this day, bread and ale may be had for
the asking by all and sundry. This dole cupboard
is said to have come from Ivy Church, an old
house at Alderbury near Salisbury, formerly a
monastery, now in ruins. The museum authori
ties are very proud, and justly so, of their little
dole cupboard. At the dissolution of the monas
teries doubtless many such found their way
into neighbouring farmhouses where they would
form handy food cupboards. Should the collec
tor have the good fortune to happen on one with
a touch of Gothic tracery about it he will indeed
be in the way of securing a veritable prize.
Fig. 70 represents a small Tudor food hutch
raised on short legs with turned feet. It is the
sort of thing which might still be found serving
the purpose of a meat-safe in many a sixteenth-
century half-timbered farmhouse kitchen. It is
interesting as a type of crude country furniture
but has scarcely any decorative value.
Somewhat higher in the scale is a mid-seven
teenth century livery cupboard, Fig. 71, at the
Victoria and Albert Museum. The front and
side panels are perforated with small holes forming

88 OLD FURNITURE
a floral design and the date (in each front panel)
1663. The piercing, besides fulfilling a useful
purpose — ventilation — adds a certain amount of
decorative value to an otherwise homely piece
of furniture. It must be borne in mind that this
livery cupboard was probably made in some far
away country district. The provinces did not
march rapidly with the times and were slow to
absorb influences which affected the furniture
manufactured in the cities. This cupboard was, by
courtesy of the director and secretary, photographed
for this volume. These cupboards and hutches
have no pretensions to the dignity of the court
cupboards and buffets of theElizabethan, Jacobean,
and Carolean periods, of which Fig. 72, dated 1689,
is a pleasing example. The drop-jewels beneath
the canopy are a characteristic feature. These
pendent knobs are a survival of the melon-bulb
balusters which, in earlier Elizabethan examples,
supported the canopies. In this case they serve
no purpose beyond that of ornament. There is
a pleasing balance in the disposition of the inter
laced scroll carving and arcading which is filled
in with conventional foliage. The right and
left end panels in the top story, with the small
central one below, are reminiscent of the Runic
carvings on the ancient churchyard crosses in
the northern shiies and are in the nature of a

OLD FURNITURE 89
departure from the convention of the period. The
undecorated panel may possibly have replaced
an earlier carved one, but as the very omission of
the carving seems to add a pleasing variety we
can well suppose it forms part of the original
scheme. It will also be noticed that there is a
happy touch in the break of the straight line by
a slight lifting of the cross stile above the plain
panel. This piece dating from the first year of
William and Mary was probably constructed
in some country district which, in matters of art,
would be half a century behind the times.
The decoration of old English furniture is
always more or less reminiscent of the ecclesiastical
architecture of the country, but not necessarily
of the contemporary architecture. During the
Gothic architectural periods the decoration of
furniture was mainly Gothic, as evidenced by
the few remaining examples of traceried chests
and coffers. But then we must bear in mind
that, even if indeed such articles were not built
exclusively for ecclesiastical purposes, none but
the wealthy few amongst the laity could afford
to pay for work which could only have been
executed by specially trained craftsmen, probably
of foreign origin. When we come to late Tudor
and Stuart times, furniture was required in
increasing quantities by the rapidly rising

90 OLD FURNITURE
mercantile and yeomen farmer classes. These
great middle classes, although immensely wealthy
as compared with the labouring classes of the
preceding centuries, would scarcely aim at any
high flight of fancy. The furniture was mainly
built by the village joiner, who would seek inspira
tion in the architecture of the village church.
Choosing the line of least resistance he would
naturally follow the forms which he would find
ready to hand in the Saxon and earlier Norman
churches (which still survived in practically
every country parish) in preference to the difficult
schemes of elaborate traceries found in the larger
churches and cathedrals of the decorated Gothic
period. The fact is emphasised in a large propor
tion of the middle-class furniture of the Stuart
period. It follows the early Norman or Roman
esque when it has any architectural feature in
its decoration. Also we find more pretentious
pieces of furniture — and they are comparatively
rare — with architectural features borrowed from
the Italian Renaissance and the English archi
tecture evolved therefrom and brought to per
fection — the culminating glory being St. Paul's
Cathedral — under the guidance of Sir Christopher
Wren (born 1632, died 1723).
Fig. 73 is reproduced from a photograph of a
fine Renaissance court cupboard in the possession

OLD FURNITURE 91
of Mr. C. J. Charles, of 27 Brook Street, W.
Mr. Charles assigns this to the reign of Elizabeth.
It was probably made late in the reign by a
master craftsman who was quite up to date.
The inlays of coloured woods and the strap
carving are in the true Elizabethan mode. The
grouped pillars supporting the canopy are similar
to those found on the fore-posts of the Great Bed
of Ware, which belongs to the latter part of the
sixteenth century. The applique ornaments of split
balustrade and pyramidal " nail beads " are early
examples of a style which became very prevalent in
Jacobean times. The measurements are : width
4 ft. 5|- in. ; depth, 1 ft. 6\ in. ; height, 4 ft. 5^ in.
It has been generally conceded that in England
the transition from one distinct style of archi
tecture to another occupied about a quarter of a
century, and we find it much the same in regard
to furniture. The last dozen years of Eliza
beth's reign and a like period in the reign of
James I. we may take as a transitional period.
We are indebted to Mr. Walter Withall for
the illustration (Fig. 74) of an early Jacobean
court cupboard in his collection at 18 Bedford
Row. It measures 4 ft. 9 in. in width and stands
5 ft. 4 in. high. The carved lozenge-shaped
designs on the panels and the deep Jacobean
groovings are typical of the period. It will be

92 OLD FURNITURE
noticed that the melon-bulb pillars of the
Elizabethan period have dwindled down to com
paratively slender proportions. This cupboard,
which is in apparently quite original condition,
was made by a skilled joiner and decorated in a
free and easy manner with the ordinary tools of
the joiner's bench. The carver was evidently
determined to get his line of groovings straight
and true, for to this day the line he scratched
with his marking gauge is visible, but he forgot
to measure up to ascertain the number of groov
ings it would take to fill the space and so we find
both on the front and sides there is about half an
inch extra of blank space left where he finished up.
Fig. 75 is a cupboard mounted on a stand with
drawers ornamented with the conventional
Jacobean mouldings. The upper portion appears
to be of a somewhat earlier date than that of the
stand. The slit perforations in the upper panels
point to its use as a food cupboard, and it is
highly probable that it was used as a church dole
cupboard or almery.
This piece is in the possession of Messrs.
Mawer & Stephenson, Ltd., of Fulham Road.
Fig. 76, at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
represents an early seventeenth-century cupboard
— neither a dressoir, court cupboard, nor side
board, butj just a cupboard pure and simple.

OLD FURNITURE 93
There is little or nothing in the build to fix its
period, but there is an unmistakable early Jacobean
character about the strapwork on the frieze, the
guiUoche carvings on the stiles, and groovings on
the base. The artist has taken considerable
license with nature in the depiction of the quaint
birds and wonderful trees which, on the same
branches, produce pineapples, pears, grapes, and
flowers. This cupboard is surmounted by a shallow
tray about 6 in. deep fitted with a hinged lid.
Fig. yy, in the same gallery, is a small side
board in two tiers, carved with interlaced strap-
work. It is very simple in design and belongs
to the middle of the seventeenth century. Of
about the same period is Fig. 78 (also at the
museum), a charming little cabinet supported on a
stand with simple turned legs. Here will be
noticed a variety of applique ornamentation con
sisting of Romanesque arches, mouldings, split
balustrades, and the small pyramidal pieces known
as nail heads.
The coloured frontispiece represents a Jacobean
sideboard or dresser, and is an excellent example
of a style which ran with variations practically
all through the Stuart reigns. The earlier
examples, as in this case, have no stretchers.
The existing brass drop-handles are probably
original, but it is also possible that they replace

94 OLD FURNITURE
turned wooden knobs carved with a rose decora
tion as in Fig. 79.
These Jacobean dressers are invariably decorated
on the drawer fronts with moulded patterns in end
less variety and with split balustrade on the stiles.
It is generally thought that these dressers
were originally surmounted by shelves to hold
plates and dishes, much in the style of the kitchen
dressers in vogue to-day. These upper stories
had no backs and were not fixed to the dressers.
In the majority of cases the theory is borne out
by the marks left by the bases of the shelf sides.
Fig. 79, at the Victoria and Albert Museum,
represents a Charles II. sideboard or dresser sur
mounted by a cabinet. These two pieces of
furniture were bought together in 1875, but
the reader will discern a decided discord in style
between them. As a matter of fact the cabinet
is not shown to the public, but was some years
since relegated to the museum crypt to keep
company with other doubtful objects which, from
time to time, have found their way into our
wonderful national storehouse of art. But to
return to the dresser, which is above reproach;
it is a development of the earlier Jacobean type
depicted in the coloured frontispiece. Florid
tendencies will be noticed in the carvings on the
" split balustrade " ornaments and the four
under-brackets, and also in the twisting of the

OLD FURNITURE 95
back legs which, in the earlier period, were usually
quite straight. The top of the dresser shows dis
tinct signs of having once been surmounted by
plate-shelves, a further indication that the cabinet
and the dresser have no relationship. During
the reigns of William III. and Anne and onward
to the end of the oak period (which may be said
to extend to the last decade of the eighteenth cen
tury) these dresser-tops became more complicated
by the addition of small cupboards, one on either
side, which were sometimes decorated with inlays.
The fronts of the sideboard portion became
deeper and often had a shelf near the ground.
The graceful dresser which adorned the middle-
class parlours of the seventeenth century are the
prototypes of the Welsh and Yorkshire types
used in the eighteenth century farm kitchens to
be in turn replaced in our own day by the painted
deal kitchen fixtures with which we are all familiar.
We now come to the chest of drawers. This
now universal piece of furniture was evolved
from the simple chest. First we find the addition
of a drawer under the chest. One might then call
it a "chest with drawer." Such an one is to
be found at the Victoria and Albert Museum
(official number 1390, 1874)— a conventional
chest of the Jacobean period with strap work on
the frieze and Romanesque arches on the front
panels filled in with vases of flowers. Under-

96 OLD FURNITURE
ne'ath have been added a line of three short
drawers with plain fronts and iron ring handles.
Fig. 8 in Chapter II. is another excellent example
of the simple chest with drawer under. By
gradual process the lidded box grows into the
more convenient nest of pull-out boxes or drawers,
often enclosed behind a pair of doors. Such
pieces might at first sight be mistaken for a mere
cupboard. In some cases, during the transition
from the simple chest to the chest of drawers,
we find a chest with drawer or drawers below and
false drawer fronts to match on the upper portion.
The old chest lid is still retained. This type,
being a hybrid, is known amongst collectors as
the " Mule Chest." The word chest clings to
the evolved structure and it is, and remains for
all time, a chest of drawers.
At first it is a somewhat stunted affair, and then
we find it raised on a short bracketed stand and
sometimes, later, on short twisted legs. We give
an illustration, Fig. 80, of a late seventeenth-
century oak chest of drawers at the Victoria and
Albert Museum built in two tiers on these
twisted legs so characteristic of the furniture
at the end of the century. In course of time
we find the chest of drawers growing taller and
taller, culminating in the " chest on chest "
or " tall boy " of the Queen Anne period.

Fig. 72. COURT CUPBOARD (DATED it
(The Property of Messrs. Gill and Reigate, Ltd., Oxford Street, W.)

Fig. 73- FINE ELIZABETHAN COURT CUPBOARD
(The Property of Mr. C. J. Charles, 27 Brook Street, W.)

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Fig. 74. COURT CUPBOARD (SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY) •
(The Property of Mr. Walter Withall)

Fig. 75. CUPBOARD ON STAND
CENTURY)

SEVENTEENTH

FIG. 77. SIDEBOARD (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 78
CABINET ON STAND
(SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 79
SIDEBOARD (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY): UPPER STORY MODERN

Fig. 80
CHEST OF I DRAWERS ON TURNED LEGS
(LATE: SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

CHAPTER VII: BEDSTEADS
AND CRADLES
This volume would scarcely be complete without
some notice of the bedsteads of olden days. We
suggested in Chapter I that the old oak bedstead,
with its tester and hangings, is scarcely the ideal
resting-place from the standpoint of hygiene. In
the nineteenth century wooden bedsteads were
discarded in favour of those made of iron and
brass. Latterly the pendulum has swung back
in the direction of old types — not indeed to the
heavy oak structures of the Middle Ages, but (in
outward form) to the graceful creations of the
eighteenth century.
In early Saxon times beds consisted of straw,
either thrown loosely on the floor or placed in
bags. These rude mattresses might be placed on a
bench or coffer. In the case of houses built of
stone, recesses were fashioned in the walls for the
accommodation of the bed, and curtains were
hung in front to keep off draughts. Illustra
tions of these sleeping-closets are found in
eleventh-century MSS. The Saxon bed was
provided with bedclothes, but it was the
custom to go to bed quite naked. Wright
reproduces in his book an illustration from an
1.97 g

98 OLD FURNITURE
illuminated MS. of a night scene in a tavern where
the disturbed (and quite nude) sleepers are fleeing
precipitately on the arrival of an unwelcome
visitor — possibly a " minion of the law." The
practice of sleeping in alcoves is continued to the
present day in some parts of the Continent. In
Brittany the lit clos, with sliding doors of
quaint lattice-work, is familiar to tourists. An
excellent example of a lit clos front is exhibited
at the Victoria and Albert Museum. An Anglo-
Saxon MS. of the eleventh century also shows
that bedsteads constructed after the fashion of a
modern child's crib were used.
There is reason to believe that a more solid
make of bedstead, with a roof at the head (in
modern parlance, a " half-tester "), was intro
duced soon after the Norman Conquest. All
this is a mere matter of history, and no specimens
have apparently lived to tell the tale. It is
interesting to know something about the decora
tions of bedrooms during the Norman period.
Shaw's " Ancient Furniture," published in 1836
and now out of print, gives some interesting
extracts from historical documents. For example,
in 1233, during the reign of Henry III., "The
Sheriff of Hampshire is commanded to take care
that the wainscoted chamber of the King in the
Castle of Winchester be painted with the same

OLD FURNITURE 99
histories and pictures as it had been previously.
And the cost, etc. shall be computed. Witness
the King at Kidderminster, the 3rd June."
Again, in 1236, "The King's treasurer is com
manded to have the great chamber of the King
at Westminster painted with good green colour
in imitation of a curtain, and also the little ward
robe of the King to have painted with green colour
in the fashion of a curtain, so that the first
time the King enters he shall find the aforesaid
chamber and wardrobe painted and ornamented
as aforesaid."
It would seem from the foregoing that it was
the custom of the rich at this time to have their
rooms wainscoted and painted with various
scenes. We find that the chamber of the Queen
was to have " the history of Alexander round about
it." The idea of having a curtain painted on the
wall is a strange device either for comfort or
decoration. It is several times referred to in
these documents. In 1260 there is the order
regarding Windsor Castle : " and in our great
chamber there, on the blank wall at the head of
our bed, to have painted the resemblance of a
curtain or hanging."
The truckle or trundle bed is frequently
mentioned in old-time literature. It was a low
bed on castors which was pushed out of the way

ioo OLD FURNITURE
under the big joined bed in the daytime
and used by the body-servant at night. These
were often constructed so that they could be
taken to pieces and packed in chests for travelling.
In " The Merry Wives of Windsor " the hostess
of the Garter Inn says of Falstaff : " There is his
chamber, his house, his castle, his standing bed
and truckle-bed ; it is painted about with the
story of the Prodigal, fresh and new."
Sir Toby Belch in " Twelfth Night " mentions
that well-known Hertfordshire curiosity, the
" Great Bed of Ware," which measures no less
than eleven feet square on the ground-plan.
The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses an
Elizabethan bedstead of the same type, but of
more rational proportions, bearing the date 1593
and the arms of Courtenay, Earl of Devon. It
came from Turton Towers, in Lancashire. There
are several other fine examples of Elizabethan
canopied bedsteads in the museum. The massive
carved classic fore-posts are distinct features
in this type. Standing well away from the bed-
foot, they support one end of the heavy corniced
roof, which rests at the other end on the panelled
head of the bedstead itself. It is natural that,
although a number of these fine substantial
structures of the Renaissance period still exist
in various castles and mansions, one rarely comes

OLD FURNITURE 101
into the open market, and when it does another
" record price " is registered. We are all familiar
with the Hathaway bedstead at Shottery, and we
know that Shakespeare in his will left his " second
best bed " to his wife. This was not, as might
be supposed, in the nature of a slight, but was
so particularised because the best one was then
the widow's portion by right.
In addition to the series of fine state bedsteads
at the Victoria and Albert Museum, there are
portions of several of the more ordinary types
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
These were built without roofs or pillars.
Fig. 8 1 represents the end of a bedstead dating
from the first half of the sixteenth century —
probably the beginning of Henry VIII.'s reign —
with four panels of linen-fold pattern and
Renaissance pillars, one of which is surmounted
by an eagle, the symbol of St. John. Possibly
the other pillars bore the symbols of the other three
Evangelists. Fig. 82, the head of another oak
bedstead, belongs to the end of the sixteenth
century, and is quite Elizabethan in character,
with beautiful inlays and elaborate Renaissance
frieze and pilasters. Fig. 83, a seventeenth-
century bedstead - head, is carved with the
Norman arches of simple guiUoche work which
we so frequently find on the chests, chairs,

102 OLD FURNITURE
and other furniture of early Jacobean times.
This style of carving survived till the end of
the seventeenth century and even later. We
find something similar on a settle dated 1693
at Knole. Although these bedsteads were built
in such a way as to be practically indestructible,
comparatively few remain, in spite of the fact
that the majority of middle-class houses must
have contained one or more. This is easily
accounted for. When the time came for them
to be discarded in favour of those of more
modern construction other uses were found for
the carved portions. The furniture dealers seized
upon them, and the majority were " made up "
into cupboards, cabinets or overmantels.
Fig. 84 represents a simple Jacobean oak bed
stead in the possession of Mr. F. W. Phillips, of
the Manor House, Hitchin. Provided with a
modern box-mattress in place of the original
laced sacking stretched between the sides, it
makes a quite comfortable resting-place. It is
interesting to note that the principal detail in
the carved work consists of a row of four round-
headed arches enclosing fan-shaped ornaments
quite similar to those found on the two Bible
boxes, Figs. 20 and 21.
Cradles, according to iUuminated MSS., seem
to have been in use during Saxon times, but

OLD FURNITURE 103
no specimen earlier than the fourteenth century
has survived. From a purely sentimental point
of view the cradle which we illustrate in Fig. 85
stands pre-eminent. Tradition points to it as being
the cradle of Henry V.,who was born in 1388.
It was originaUy at Courtfield, near Monmouth,
where the infant Prince was placed in charge of
Lady Montacute, granddaughter of Edward I.
There is apparently quite sufficient evidence to
associate this cradle with Falstaff's crony, the
" Madcap Prince." It has been described by
various writers since 1774, and engraved for
several works in the latter part of the eighteenth
and early part of the nineteenth centuries. It
came into the hands of the late Mr. G. W.
Braikenridge in 1833, who strengthened the stand
by the addition of two stretchers. At the
Braikenridge sale, some two or three years ago,
this interesting relic was purchased by Mr.
Guy F. Laking, M.V.O., Keeper of the King's
Armoury, for the coUection of His late Majesty
King Edward VII. The iUustration is reproduced
from a fine engraving in Shaw's " Ancient Furni
ture," published in 1836. Mr. Laking informs
us that since the publication of Shaw's iUustration
the cradle has been subjected to careful restora
tion and is much improved in appearance.
The Earl of Mar and Kellie possesses the

104 OLD FURNITURE
cradle of James I. It stands on two rockers and
has a turned rocking-post at each corner. It
is ornamented on the edge with bands of carving
and jewel-work, and the side panels are inlaid with
light and dark woods. Another royal cradle,
at Hatfield House, bears the initials " A. R."
Tradition says it was used by Queen Elizabeth
when an infant, but the carving suggests that it
was made some time nearer the death of Elizabeth.
It is more probable that the " A. R." (Anna
Regina) stands for Anne of Denmark, consort of
James I., rather than for Anne Boleyn. In this case
it may weU have cradled Charles I. and his sister,
another Elizabeth, the grandmother of George I.
Stepping down to humbler cots, we give an
illustration (Fig. 86) of a cradle belonging to
the end of the seventeenth century. About
this time hoods with hinged lids were added,
and the panels usuaUy had raised centres.
Another cradle (Fig. 87), at the Victoria and Albert
Museum, bears a date carved on the back — 1691.
This has a movable hinged hood and is provided
with buttons at the sides to which the coverlet
would be fastened.
Oak cradles of the seventeenth century are
very decorative objects for hall or drawing-room,
and simple examples can be purchased for about
five or six pounds*

CHAPTER VIII : WOODWORK.
NOTES ON CARVING AND
DECORATION Probably the most useful mental equipment
for the study of old furniture is a knowledge of the
styles and characteristics of the various periods.
The detail of old woodwork is rarely promiscuous.
It generally has reason behind it, and it is fre
quently directly related to the architecture of its
time. Chip is probably the earliest form of carving,
and is performed by simple strokes whereby the
wood is chipped off, and can be executed even
with a penknife.
Carving on the flat is caUed "incised" work;
it is perhaps the least interesting form of carving,
and frequently presents a mere outline.
Carving is called in " the round " when in
independent figures or motifs.
Carving is in " low or high relief " inasmuch as it
presents a more or less flat or outstanding surface.
Although of Anglo-Saxon and Norman furni
ture we have no identified specimens surviving —
and, in fact, we have few examples of woodwork
in England prior to Henry VIII. (early sixteenth
105

106 OLD FURNITURE
century) — history has a way of repeating itself,
and in the British Museum there are examples
of Egyptian furniture dating back to perhaps
thousands of years B.C., from which we see that
the methods of manufacture have differed very
little to the present day. There are the familiar
three-legged stools, and folding camp-stools, as
weU as splendid thrones and state seats. We
find the pieces mortised into tenons, lathe
turned, hinged and carved, as weU as inlaid with
ivory, ebony and other fine woods. Marquetry
was also practised by the Egyptians, who also
painted their furniture.
It is said that all European style has sprung
from the Grecian temples and the Gothic
cathedrals. Certainly the first surviving type
of English woodwork is of Gothic conception.
The term " Gothic," if one considers its origin, is
a singularly inappropriate epithet to apply to
a supremely beautiful style. It was first applied
in a contemptuous sense by the Renaissance
architects to all mediaeval style, as by them it
was considered barbarous — Gothic. Roughly,
there are three periods of English Gothic, as
follows :
Thirteenth century. Earlyl English.— Tall,
narrow or lancet-shaped windows; ornament
sparingly used.

OLD FURNITURE 107
Fourteenth century. Decorated. — Tracery ;
flowing and geometrical.
Fifteenth century. Perpendicular. — Tracery ;
vertical lined.
Examples of the pure Gothic style upon English
woodwork are to be seen in the coffers in a number
of the English churches. Fig. 88 shows Early
English Gothic carving of the second half of the
thirteenth century. The windows are narrow
and lancet-shaped, with quatrefoil and trefoil
openings alternately over the lights; but the
decoration (which is easily distinguishable in
the reproduction) shows that it belongs to the
end of the first period of Gothic architecture
and inclines to the next period — the Decorated.
The whole of the door is carved out of the solid,
which was the custom of the time.
Fig. 89 is a wonderfully well preserved
coffrette in the collection of Mr. Walter WithaU,
of 18, Bedford Row, London. It is 21 in. long
and 12 in. high. The tracery reflects the Gothic
style — transitional from Decorated to Perpen
dicular — prevalent during the last quarter of the
fourteenth century, although the coffrette was
probably made as late as the sixteenth century. It
is probablycopiedfrom some fine traceried window.
Prolong the lower perpendicular lines, and the eye
easily fills in the complete picture of a window of

108 OLD FURNITURE
five pointed arches, each subdivided into two
lights. The curves flow upward in true Decorated
manner into four intersecting circles, which may
be subdivided into five pointed ovals filled in
with quatrefoils and double tongue-shaped lights.
Here we see the English touch. It is quite
distinct from the flamboyant tracery which we
find in the doorway lights at Harfleur and the
windows of St. Saveur at Dinan, where the up
ward flowing lines have quite a flamelike appear
ance. Here, in this English Gothic, the traceries
resolve themselves into geometrical lines, and we
have the " tongues " without the " flame " tracery.
The numberless intersections are almost bewilder
ing. In the lower half (taking it from right to
left and left to right) the alternate perpendicular
lines flowing upwards resolves the scheme into
four ogee-headed overlapping arches. Here, in
the angles of the ogees, the carver seems to have
reached the limit of his imagination, and where the
Frenchman would have contrived to insert further
details of open tracery, the Englishman has filled
the spaces with disproportionate twelve-petalled
flowers, with baU centres, which are repeated
in the circles above the heads of the double lights
below. In passing, we may mention that Mr.
Fred Roe iUustrates in his book on " Old Oak
Furniture " a Gothic livery cupboard, which he

OLD FURNITURE 109
assigns to the reign of Henry VIIL, with pierced
tracery, including precisely similar flowers. In
the case of Mr. WithaU's coffrette there is, for
obvious reasons, no pierced work. The flat
background is left to represent the glass in the
Gothic window. The ends each consist of plain
panels, and the box is furnished with substantial
drop handles of iron so constructed that they
cannot lift higher than the horizontal position,
and so will not jam the knuckles. These handles
on so small a chest point to the fact that the
coffrette was constructed to hold treasure.
This is further borne out by the presence in the
interior of a shallow tray fitted with a lid. The
fan-shaped dovetailing . at the corner is visible.
Mr. Roe is of opinion that hidden dovetailing
was practised in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, and doubts that it was made visible
before the sixteenth century.
Mr. Withall esteems the coffrette one of
the choicest treasures in his collection. ^ It is
reputed to have been once in the collection of
Lady Hopetoun, and somehow, many years ago,
it drifted into a dealer's shop at Twickenham.
Mr. WithaU, then a very young man with slender
pocket money, saw it in the window and inquired
the price. "Twenty-five shiUings." "Too
much"; and passed on. After repeated yearnings

no OLD FURNITURE
and inquiries the price was reduced to twelve
shiUings. The would-be buyer returned on the
morrow with eleven shillings and sixpence in his
pocket, but to his dismay the coveted box had
been removed from the window. With sinking
heart he entered, to find it in the back part of
the shop. The coffrette changed hands for the
eleven shillings, and the odd sixpence went to
a boy who carried it home over Twickenham
Ferry. It is to be feared that we cannot all
commence our coUections with a genuine little
coffer of the Gothic period, even if we are
prepared to pay eleven hundred shillings for it.
Fig. 90 is an oak panel of the late fifteenth
century, and is another and a fine example of
decorated Gothic carving. This subject is to be
seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
As mentioned in the chapter on Chests, the
Tilting Coffer belongs to the fourteenth century,
mythical subjects being a favourite theme as
applied to the carving of the panels. Fig. 91
shows the front of a chest upon which the
story of St. George and the Dragon is depicted.
It will be remarked that the various stages of
the drama are in simultaneous operation. On
the extreme left St. George is offering his services
to the Princess, and lower down the Princess is
in an attitude of prayer whilst the knight is

OLD FURNITURE in
engaged in combat with the dragon. Further
on the dragon, with an expression of amiable
submission, is being led captive, by the lady, into
the castle, and from a further window the King
and Queen are watching the scene of triumph.
St. George, with inverted lance, is modestly
bringing up the rear. The castellated architec
ture is an interesting feature, as weU as the
symbolical lion, who is an uninterested spectator
from an eminence. The whole incident appears
to transpire over a sporting piece of country,
judging from the number of rabbits which are
popping in and out of their burrows.
Fig. 92 is a charming Uttle panel of the late
fifteenth century in which the stems of hop and
oak are cunningly intertwined. It is carved in
open work. The effect is singularly delicate and
graceful, and the original in the Victoria and
Albert Museum may be studied with advantage.
Linen paneUing (which is now machine-made
by the mile) is of Gothic origin, and appeared in
England at the end of the Gothic period, viz.
the end of the fifteenth century. By the begin
ning of the sixteenth century it was a popular
form of- decoration on woodwork. It is, in fact,
typical decoration of the reign of Henry VIIL,
and it barely survived to the age of Elizabeth.
The style appears to have been imported into

112 OLD FURNITURE
England from Flanders. Its obvious resemblance
is, of course, to a folded napkin, but it is said to
be emblematical of the folds into which the
chalice veil faUs when covering the Host in the
Sacrament of the Eucharist. There are many
variations of linenfold. Fig. 93 shows a beautiful
example in the Victoria and Albert Museum
in which the linen has a bordering copied no
doubt from the original fabric. Above is a
Gothic border. The paneUing was taken from
a farmhouse (now destroyed) at Kingstone, near
Taunton. Fig. 94 is an old linenfold door, pro
bably unique. It came from a church in
Staffordshire, but it was for many years in a
farmyard, used as the entrance to a fowlhouse.
It is at present the property of Mr. J. D. PhiUips,
The Old Farm, High Street, Slough. This piece
is very interesting from the fact that the pegs and
strings which probably held the original fabric in
position are also reproduced. Contemporary with
linenfold panelling we find the Parchemin paneUing
resembling scroUs of parchment wound round a
rod; it was not so generally used as linenfold.
Also at this time are found the heads enclosed in
medaUions, known as " Romayne " work. These
heads are generaUy unprepossessing in appearance,
and bear a family likeness. The linenfold,
parchment, and medaUion portrait panels arc

f*pX"A

1 Ifil
: I I i II ¦ I

I

il
lr
tit
Fig. 8i
HEAD OF BEDSTEAD (FIRST HALF OF SIXTEENTH
CENTURY),
Fig. 82
HEAD OF BEDSTEAD (END OF SIXTEENTH
CENTURY) I : 4
Fig. 83
END OF BEDSTEAD (EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 84
SIMPLE OAK BEDSTEAD (JACOBEAN PERIOD)

Fig. 85. CRADLE OF HENRY V
(In the Collection of H.M. Ihe King)

Fig. 86. SIMPLE CRADLE (SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY)
w

Fig. 87. HOODED CRADLE (LATE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 88. GOTHIC DOOR (SECOND HALF OF
THIRTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 89. GOTHIC COFFRETTE
(The Property of Mr. Walter Withall)

Fig. 90. GOTHIC PANEL (LATE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY)

teiri/'.Qi

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Fig. 91. FRONT OF TILTING-CHEST (SECOND HALF OF FOURTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 92. OPENWORK CARVING (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)

OLD FURNITURE 113
therefore distinguishing features of the decoration
of the woodwork of the tinie of Henry VIII.
Fig. 95 consists of twelve panels within a moulded
framework taken from an old house near Waltham
Abbey. It shows the portrait medaUion style
and is fuU of spirit and fancy. Here we have the
mingling of the late Gothic style with the classical.
For example, the ogee arches and leafage suggest
the influence of the former, while the profile
busts and shaped vases suggest the latter.
Fig. 96 is of a medallion panel of the same
period, with male and female heads wearing the
head-dress of the time. Fig. 97 is an interesting
panel also of the same period. On the left is
a representation of Adam and Eve in Paradise;
in the centre is a shield borne by two angels,
containing symbols of the Passion of our Lord ;
on the right, grafted with other decorative motifs,
there are the cock's head and the dolphin. The
effect, although wanting in finish, is quaint in
the extreme.
In mediaeval times the standard of education,
social comfort, and domestic convenience were at
a low ebb. As the conditions improved men's
minds turned towards a system which would
enable them to live in greater comfort and
enjoyment. They reverted to the classic Roman
forms and ideas of life. This passive revolution
r H

H4 OLD FURNITURE
from idealism to utilitarianism was caUed the
Renaissance. " In politics," says Mr. Gotch,
"it shattered the international fabric of the
Middle Ages ; in religion it brought about the
momentous change which we call the Reforma
tion ; in art it wedded faultless execution with
an extraordinary fecundity of design." What
ever the Renaissance did or did not do, it certainly
had the effect of vastly improving the conditions
of domestic life, and brought about more habitable
dweUings and more adequate furniture.
In the beginning of the fifteenth century,
with the revival in Italy of the study of classic
literature, there had grown a taste for the old
Roman forms of ornamentation, a taste which
spread through Europe. The lovely flowing
geometrical tracery of the Gothic periods gave
place to what Mr. Brock caUs " the more
naturalesque treatment of the Renaissance."
Fine examples of Italian Renaissance woodwork
are to be seen in the marriage coffers in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. Nature in its
varied forms and manifestations is held under
contribution. We find foliage and flowers, birds
and fruits, as well as beasts and human figures,
graceful and grotesque. Scrolls and arabesques
and details of classical architecture contribute
to the composition of Renaissance decorative

OLD FURNITURE 115
woodwork, the finish and fertility of which are
admirable. In the fifteenth and sixteenth cen
turies furniture designing was a part of the
architect's profession, so that the decoration
in the two branches has a naturally intimate
relationship which reveals itself in a similarity of
styles. The making of furniture took its place
amongst the arts, and even a great artist like
Holbein, when court painter to Henry VIIL,
was a designer of furniture.* In this reign we
find the influence of the Renaissance upon wood
work in the ornate decoration, such as heads
enclosed within panels, foliage and dolphins in
various forms, grafted on the simple English
linenfold. A further example of the two styles
is shown in the chair, Fig. 30.
The furniture of Elizabeth shows the increased
influence of the Renaissance. The gentle tracery
of the Gothic periods and the simple linenfold
has disappeared, but in its place we find a style
* A Tudor cabinet which some authorities ascribe to Holbein
is to be seen in one of the Tapestry Courts at the Victoria and
Albert Museum. It is numbered 27 — 1867, was purchased for
£500, and is thus described : — " Cabinet of pine, overlaid with
marquetry of sycamore, pearwood, Hungarian ash, maple and
other woods, and enriched with carvings in boxwood. On the
base are the rose and portcullis emblems of the Tudor sovereigns
of England. Probably made in England by a craftsman from
South Germany. Second half of sixteenth century."

n6 OLD FURNITURE
virile and resourceful. A fine Elizabethan bed
stead or table is as strong and impressive a piece
of work as will be found in the history of wood-
carving. The distinctive features of the work
of the period are :
I. Architectural facades, including pilasters,
columns, and round arches (see chest, Fig. 3).
2. The Melon Bulb (see table, Fig. 57).
3. Strapwork.
4. Caryatides or figures used as supports in
place of columns.
5. Grotesques.
Fig. 98 is an example of strapwork from a room
in the house formerly known as The Old Palace,
Bromley-by-Bow. Fig. 99 is a portion of the carved and inlaid
panelling from Sizergh Castle, Westmorland,
and shows in its architectural character and its
rich and virile decoration the influence of the
Renaissance. It was at this period that inlay
began to be used in England. Holly and bog
oak, because no doubt of the contrasts in colour,
were favourite woods for this work, and are used
in the present example. Inlaying is, of course,
merely the laying in of smaU pieces of one
wood in places cut out of the surface of another
wood. The arts of the Elizabethan period were

OLD FURNITURE 117
characterised by great virility and variety.
Wood-carving was no exception. The Italian
influence is marked, and we know that some
of the work was executed by Italian workmen
resident here and by Englishmen who had studied
in Italy.
Elizabeth died in 1603, and the period which
followed, known as the Jacobean, marked a
distinct change in style, although, as in every
change of period, there is a certain amount of
overlapping. Generally the richer specimens
are Elizabethan and the more severe Jacobean.
Fig. 100 shows a transitional piece, being a portion
of panelling in the " Presence Chamber " of the
Treaty House at Uxbridge. The Commissioners
of Charles I. and the Parliament met here later
on in the century to negotiate for a treaty of
peace. In this example we have the decorative
strapwork of the first period in conjunction
with the plainer panelling of the second, the
centre panel being an interesting instance of the
applied Jacobean work, with a decorative border
in the earlier style.
The decoration of this period was generally
applied, being carved or moulded and then
fastened in its place. The effect is that of high
relief. Fig. ioi is a very typical example of Jacobean

118 OLD FURNITURE
woodwork. It is a mantel for a chimneypiece
removed from an old house in Lime Street,
City, and was presented to the Victoria and
Albert Museum by the Fishmongers' Company.
It dates from the first part of the seventeenth
century. Here we have the architectural facades
very much reduced in importance, whilst the
applied ornamentation is the prevailing form of
decoration. The diamond or lozenge is frequently found
at this time, and particularly on chests, and appears
to have made its appearance about the time of
Cromwell. Geometrical panelling is found in
great variety, and although architectural details
are less in use, the round arch still retains its
popularity. Bosses and nail headings (terms
which explain themselves) are frequently found.
The furniture of the great houses of the
seventeenth century did not depend so much
for decoration upon fine carving as upon fine
coverings. Rich fabrics of velvet, brocade,
and silk covered the furniture, frequently to
such an extent as to leave a very smaU
area unexposed, and in the bedsteads it is
difficult to remark any wood beneath their
coverings and draperies of rich stuffs — a great
contrast to the magnificent carved wooden
bedsteads of Elizabeth. A visit to Knole House,

OLD FURNITURE 119
Sevenoaks, many of the rooms in which are
furnished as in the seventeenth century, is an
object-lesson in the grand furniture of this period.
The Jacobean woodwork, the chests, chairs,
sideboards, &c, which we collect in these days,
came, of course, from the houses of the mer
chants and the people. They have not the grand
manner of the Elizabethan furniture, but they are
simple and singularly pleasing in their decorative
qualities, and, moreover, they are constructed
strictly with due regard for use. They were made
by craftsmen with whom, as with Adam Bede,
good carpentry was " God's will," or " at least
that form of God's will which most intimately
concerned" them.
This book, unlike many others, has no chapter
on fakes, which, according to Professor Skeat,
is derived from the Middle Dutch fake, facken,
to catch. No doubt it is an invaluable faculty
to be able to tell the right thing from the wrong,
but, carried too far, it is apt to eclipse the situation.
A son of one of the greatest picture dealers told
us once that he could tell a fine picture from an
imitation at a glance, as quickly as he could tell
a pretty woman from a plain one. We have no
doubt that the same faculty is possessed by some
in regard to furniture. After long experience it is
little short of intuition. We have seen it, however,

120 OLD FURNITURE
in the form of an obsession in which beauty,
historical interest, utility, and all other precious
qualities of furniture are submerged. In such
a situation the collector is no longer a student,
but a detective.

Fig. 93. LINENFOLD PANELLING EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 94
LINENFOLD DOOR (EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig 95 PORTRAIT MEDALLION PANELLING (EARLY
SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 96. PORTRAIT MEDALLION PANELLING (EARLY
SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

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i &i-'' ' s§U i^i
t! a\fi_ ¦ M^-*c%. "' l^-

Fig. 97. PANELLING (EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

^^*?m

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m

Fig. 98
STRAPWORK (LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. 99
CARVED AND INLAID PANELLING (LATE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY)

Fig. ioo
PANELLING (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

Fig. ioi
MANTEL FOR CHIMNEYPIECE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)

INDEX

Almbry, 86, 92
Anglo-Saxon and Norman furni
ture, 105
Architectural characteristics in
Elizabethan furniture, 116
Architectural facades on chests,
21, 116
Architecture, its influence on
furniture, 89
Armoire, 81
Auction sales, 13
Balustrade ornaments, 91, 93,
94
Bedsteads, Anglo-Saxon and
Norman, 97, 98
Bedroom furniture, a
Courtenay, 100
Day-beds, 47, 48
Elizabethan, 100, 10 1
Great Bed of Ware, 100
Henry VIII., 101
Jacobean, 101, 102
Knole House, 49, 56
Renaissance period, 100
Shakespeare's, 101
Truckle or Trundle, 99
Bible Boxes, chip carved, 39, 40
as reading desks, 38
country made, 41
dated, 1660, 41
on stands, 38, 40
seventeenth-century, 38, 39
'" Board and Lodging," 6q
Bosses, 118
Buffet, 85
Bureau, 3
Carving, chip, 39, 40. i°5
Cock's head, 113
Dolphin, 113
Elizabethan characteristics,
116, 117
Gothic, 106-110

Carving, incised, 105
Jacobean characteristics,
117, n8, 119
Linenfold, 19, 20, S3. 101,
in
Notched ornaments, 39
Parchemin panelling, 112
Relief, 105
Renaissance, 113, 114, 115
Romayne, 20, 112, 113
Strapwork, 25, 116
Windsor, carved stalls at,
18
Chairs in Anglo-Saxon and
Norman times, 52
a luxury in early times,
31
Cabriole leg, early form of,
49. 66
Carolean, 60
Charles II., 58, 60, 62
Cherub or Cupid decoration
on, 82
Children's, 57, 62
Cromwell, 60
Currule orX-shaped, 54, 56
Derbyshire, 63
Elizabethan panelled, 5$
Gothic, 53
Henry VIII. period, 53
seventeenth-century, 57
i' Thrown " or turned, 54
upholstered, 56
Wentworth, 58
with brackets or ears, $8
Charterhouse, furniture at, 36
Chaucer, reference to tables, yo
Chests and Coffers, Crediton
Church Coffer, 16
early use of, 1 5
Elizabethan, 21, 22
Esther Hobsonne'a Chest,
27
Gothic, is, 16
1 1

122

INDEX

Chests and Coffers, Guild of
Cofferers, 31
Jacobean, 23, 26, 27, 28
Mule Chest, 96
I' Omey " Coffer at South-
wark Cathedral, 21
Tilting Chests, 16, no
with drawers, 26, 96
Chests of Drawers, evolution of,
95. 96
Jacobean, 95, 96
Coffers (see Chests and Coffers)
Coffrette, property of Mr. Walter
Withall, 107
Colour of Old Oak, 10
Court Cupboards of early times,
81
Elizabethan, 90
general history of, 84, 85,
86
Jacobean, in Mr. Walter
WithaU's Collection, 91
seventeenth - century, 88,
92
Courtenay Bedstead, 100
Coverings to furniture, 118
Cradles, dated 1671, 104
Elizabeth's (Princess), 104
Henry V., 103
hooded, seventeenth -cen
tury, 104
James I., 104
simple, 104
Credence, 82, 85
Cupboards, 85, 87, 92 (see also
Court Cupboards)
Currule or X Chairs, 54, 56
Dauphin of France and Dolphin
decorations, 39
Day-beds, of Jacobean and
Carolean times, 47, 48
mentioned in Shakespeare's
Richard III., 47
" Dentists' Oak," 29
Desks, " Robert Baker " desk,
dated 1660, 41
at Victoria and Albert
Museum, 38

Dining-room, furniture suitable
for, 5, 60, 63, 67, 78
Dole Cupboards, 86, 87, 92
Dovetailing, 109
Dowels, 10
Drawing-room furniture, 2
Dresser or Dressoir, derivation
of term, 8 5
in time of Edward I., 82
Jacobean, 93, 94
Welsh and Yorkshire, 95
Egyptian furniture, 106
Elizabethan period, distinctive
features, 116
Elizabeth's reign, standard of
comfort increased, 5 5
Exeter Cathedral, Bishop's
Throne, 17
Fakes, 119
Falstaff's Chamber and furni
ture, 100
" Figuring " in Oak, n
Floors, insanitary condition of,
75
Food hutch, 87
GATE-leg tables, 5, 78, 79, 80
Green's "History," reference to
Puritanism, 63
Gothic styles, 106-1 10
Henry VIIL, houses in time of,
54
Holbein, a designer of furniture,
"5
Hutch, food, 87
Italian influence, 54. 56, 72,
113. "7
" Ivanhoe," reference to furni
ture in, 52
Kentish furniture, 26
Knole House, admission to, $6
Box Settle at, 49, 102
Charles I. furniture at, 56

INDEX

123

Knole House, history of, 49-51,
James I., bedroom at, 51
Venetian or X-shaped
chairs at, 56
Library furniture, 3
Linenfold carving, 19 20, 53,
101, hi
Lit clos, 98
Livery cupboards, 85, 86, 87
Livery, servants, 86
Melon bulb, 72, 76
Monk's bench, 46
Mouldings, 24, 26, 117
Mule chests, 96
Nail head ornaments, 26, 91,
93. "8
Norman architecture, its in
fluence on furniture, 90
!' Offley " chest at South -
wark Cathedral, 21
Painted walls in early times, 98
Parlours introduced, 53
Pepy's " Diary," jj
Puritanism, 63
Renaissance, 114
Romayne style of decoration, 20,
112
Rushes as floor coverings, 75
Sales, auction, 13
Salt, sitting above the, 56
Settles, Farmhouse, 44
Monk's bench, 46
in Saxon times, 43
in Tudor times, 43
Table, 47
used as Coffers, 43
Yorkshire, 45
Shakespeare, Bedstead men
tioned in will of , 101
reference to Day-beds, 47
Falstaff 's furniture, 100

Shakespeare, reference to Great
Bed of Ware, 100
Joint-stools, 35
Trestle tables, 71
Sideboards, 85, 93, 94 (see also
under Court Cupboards)
Silver furniture at Knole House,
5i
Sizergh Castle panelling, 116
Sleeping closets in old MSS., 97
Spiral turnery, 59
Stools, at Charterhouse, 36
Coffin, 34, 36
Elizabethan, 35
Joyned, 34
mentioned in Romeo
and Juliet, 35
Strapwork, 22
Strutt, Gentleman's house in
time of Henry VIII.
described, 54
condition of floors, 75
Tables, Chair, 78
Cromwellian, 77
Elizabethan, 71, 72, 73, 74,
76
Elizabethan Octagonal at
Carpenter's Hall, 74
Gate-leg, 5, 78, 79, 80
Henry VIII.. 71
in Mr. Walter WithaU's
Collection, 71
Melon bulb on, 72
Norman, 70
Oak table and bench, 70
of Degrees, 83
Refectory, 6
referred to by Chaucer, 70
Round, early, 69
referred to by Shakespeare,
71
Small tables generally used,
76
Stuart, late, 78
Trestle, 70
Withdrawing, 6, 72
mechanism of, 72
Tea, its influence on f urniture, 77

124 INDEX
Tilting Chests, no
Trucke or trundle beds, 99
Uxbridgb, Treaty House, panel
ling at, 117
Varnish, ii
Walnut Wood furniture in
fashion, 63
origin of, in England, 65
Wainscoted chambers in early
times, 98

Ware, Great Bed of, 100
" Wentworth " Chair, 58
Windsor, carved stalls at, 18
WithaU's, Mr. Walter, Collec
tion, 40, 45, 71, 91, 107
Wright's " Homes of other
Days," 55,82, 97
X-shapb or Currule Chairs, 54,
56
Yorkshire Chairs, 63
Settles, 45

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