Table
Category
Furniture
Date
1620 - 1640
Materials
Oak and elm
Measurements
81.5 x 556.4 x 83.1 cm
Order this imageCollection
Chastleton House, Oxfordshire
NT 1429929
Caption
The refectory table would have been used by the servants whilst the family dined on another table on the raised dais area in the Great Hall. It is one of the few items in the Chastleton collection that can be identified with certainty in the 1633 inventory; taken the year after the death of the first owner of Chastleton House, Walter Jones.
Summary
An oak six-legged table, English, circa 1620-40. The top of three single planks with cleated ends, above plain friezes with plain, shaped spandrels. Raised on six baluster-, ring- and reel-turned legs terminating in block feet and joined by rectangular-section foot stretchers.
Full description
The table in the hall, raised on six turned rising baluster and reel legs and with carved spandrels, is otherwise relatively plain, suggesting a date later the building of the house. It is more likely to date from around 1620-1640. It may, therefore, be the ‘one long table with a frame’ listed in the inventory of 1633. It is highly unlikely, however, that it was one of the tables used in the hall when the house was first built. It may have been listed in the 1874 inventory as ‘Oak side table on turned pillars’. Dr Megan Wheeler, Assistant National Curator (Furniture) – May 2024
Provenance
1633 inventory 'one long table with a frame'