The Grimston Garth Dining Table
A REGENCY NEO-CLASSICAL CIRCULAR PADOUK WOOD DINING TABLE WITH A SOLID TOP OF MASSIVE SIZE AFTER A DESIGN BY THOMAS HOPE
ENGLAND. CIRCA 1815
Diameter 76” (193cm) Height 29 ½” (75.5 cm)
As pointed out by Adam Bowett, the internationally recognised expert on woods used in British Furniture making, this rare solid top is likely to have been sourced from South East Asia and is clearly from a tree of exceptional size. The colour is similar to the most sought after Padouk burrs in the early 19th century and was probably shipped because of its extraordinary scale and figure.
The circular top sits above a curved ebonised moulding and shallow frieze leading to a triform base. Each face of the base is centred by a metal wreath with an ebonised scrolling bracket to each corner leading to a stepped platform with a tongue and dart moulding. The whole is supported on three substantial, ebonised and acanthus carved, winged claw feet.
The central post and spiral thread system of attaching the top to the table base appears to be unique and was specifically designed to allow for the great size and weight of the top. Clearly this design is extremely successful in as much as the table is unusually stable.
Provenance : Thomas Grimston of Grimston Garth, Yorkshire
By descent to
Sir Max Waechter de Grimston and Lady Waechter de Grimston
Of Grimston Garth, Holderness and Hall Garth, Goodmanham,
Thomas Grimston employed the leading Yorkshire architect, John Carr to build Grimston Garth, a Gothic revival castellated summer residence with a central hexagonal room on each floor. The ground floor dining room was extended with two wings in 1812. It is probable that at that time the table was commissioned specifically as the centrepiece for this hexagonal ground floor dining room.
When Lady de Grimston moved to Hall Garth in preference to Grimston Garth on the bleak Holderness coast, she almost certainly took the table with her as it appeared in a photograph in Yorkshire Life of the dining room at Hall Garth in 1952.
Our thanks to both the historian and author Adam Bowett and Dr Peter Gasson of Kew Botanical Gardens for their valued assistance in identifying the wood used in this table, correspondence copies of which are available together with a copy of the article in the Yorkshire Life
See: Illustration No. 231 Designs For Household Furniture 1807 by Thomas Hope for a circular table with similar base. .In creating this design Thomas Hope appears to have drawn inspiration from the tripod base of an ancient Roman Candelabrum.
