Refectory table

 Monday 17 October 2022


Today I fixed a 400 year old elm and oak Jacobean refectory table for my friend Justin.

The table had been acquired by his parents when they purchased Bookerhill farmhouse near High Wycombe. The table was too large to remove from the farmhouse so the vendors had simply left it behind.

When Justin’s parents moved to Gaunts Earthcott Manor House his mother got a carpenter to cut 2 inches off the legs so she could get it out of the farm. She also had to remove the stretchers to get it into the new manor house.

Once in its new location the stretchers were reattached and leg off-cuts put in a box of assorted bits of wood where they remained for the next 70 years.

Justin’s parents have now died, the Manor house has been sold and I helped him to move the table to his new house in Lydney. We had to remove the stretchers again to get it out of the manor house. This was about a year ago. Today I was refixing the stretchers and fixing the original off-cuts to the bottom of the legs.

The legs were approximately 4 inches square but interestingly all slightly different. There was a good quarter inch difference between the largest and smallest. It wasn’t difficult to match the off-cuts to the legs. 

I had decided to re-fix them with oak pegs, 2 per leg to prevent any twisting. I had already made the 8 oak pegs, each 4 inches long and half inch diameter.

With the table on its side I now used a couple of sash clamps to clamp the off-cuts to the bottom of the legs and started to drill the 400 year old oak with a hand brace and bit, which proved to be an extremely arduous task which involved several rest breaks.

Once the table was back on its new feet with the side stretchers re-attached I said I should have used an electric drill. Justin said he had been wondering the same thing but thought it better not to ask.

The table is now 30.5 inches tall which is close to the standard height for a table, however the side chairs, which I had re-rushed a few months ago, are only 17 inches high so the table does feel a bit high and will take a bit of getting used to.. 

“But it brings your food closer to your mouth” Justin helpfully observed.

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