Classic Hardwood

I think it’s worth going into the history of English furniture, just to give us a background to what we are working from. Whilst we now have the worldwide influences that have spread through both business and formally through feedback from the commonwealth, a good proportion of the techniques and designs we use today are of English descent.

Charles the 1st English Oak Chest Circa 1640

A lot of furniture in stately homes and in the antique market date all the way back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the most popular over all this time seems to be oak furniture.

When the subject of English furniture first began to be studied and to be written about, it was split into four categories: The Age of Oak, The Age of Walnut, The Age of Mahogany and The Age of Satinwood. It is not as simple as that though, as the “Ages” overlap each other, and you cannot cite dates at which the woods became fashionable. They are good as rough guides. It is well worth noting that oak is the traditional English wood. It was used pretty much exclusively for the construction of furniture from the most primitive times until about 1650, it has persisted until now, and I’m sure it will go on ad infinitum.

Old oak furniture is extremely solid. The wood is very hard, resists both rot and woodworm. Hand made pieces also required (and still do require) a lot of time, patience and strength to manufacture correctly. Most surviving pieces are of huge and very heavy.

In part two we will look at how English oak furniture faired in the 18th and 19th centuries.