Doe and Hope

Description

The nineteenth century oak refectory table having an associated rectangular three-plank heavy set top with a fourteen inch overhang to each end, on an oak base with carved detailing and ing to the frieze in the 17thc style, the whole on gun barrel shaped supports and peripheral stretcher.

The condition is good and honest with no repair work. There are no gaps between the planks to the top but it does have a little warp to it, and although it doesn’t wobble, it doesn’t quite sit true. The top is removable, so it sits in place via stoppers to the underside. We have hand waxed the top and it does have a nice patination to it. The base is in good order and has no damage to report, aside form the usual nicks and blemishes commensurate with its age.

A refectory table is a highly elongated table used originally for dining in monasteries in Medieval times. In the Late Middle Ages the table gradually became a banqueting or feasting table in castles and other noble residences. The original table manufacture was by hand and created of oak or walnut the design is based on a trestle-style. Typically the table legs are supported by circumferential stretchers, as we see here, positioned very low to the floor. In its original use, one or more refectory tables were placed within the monks' dining hall or refectory and the larger refectories would have a number of refectory tables where monks would take their meals, often while one of the monks read sacred texts from an elevated pulpit. Overhangs like we have here is in keeping with the earliest tavern and refectory tables.

This is a table that has a distinctly dusty gothic country house feel to it, IE you can picture a wild boar being torn apart on it, and it is the kind of table that not only makes a room but one that also improves with age. Just like your good self I imagine, right?