The fourth of Bristol's historic woodcarving treasures: the oak rooms of the Red Lodge.

To my mind, Bristol has four particular historic woodcarving treasures, that anyone who loves carving should try and see if they visit the city. These are:

• The misericords of Bristol Cathedral from the early 16th century

• Eighteenth century carvings by Thomas Paty at Redland Chapel

• The eighteenth century Grinling Gibbons oak overmantle in the Central Library

• The oak rooms of the Red Lodge from the late sixteenth century 

So far, the only one of these that I haven't shared with you is the Red Lodge, so it seems time to put that right!

The Red Lodge was built around 1580 by Sir John Younge and was actually a smaller estate building behind the Great House, which has since been demolished. If the Lodge had this kind of woodcarving in it, what must the carving in the main house have looked like?

Only three of the rooms from Elizabethan times have survived, with the others being remodelled and altered around 1730. The largest of these, known as the 'Great Oak Room' is the only 16th century panelled room to survive in Bristol and is one of the finest in the West Country, with not only the original oak panelling but also ornate plasterwork on the ceiling and a large carved Bath stone fireplace.

Most of the designs carved into the oak would have come from pattern books. There are bands of different carving ornamentation covering the lower areas of the oak panelling.

Some of the finest carving is around the two doors leading into the room from the main landing.

Some of the motifs carved above the doors obviously refer to the lands to the West recently discovered by Europeans; America.

The door towards the adjoining anteroom and chamber has this curious grotesque face over it, the only one of this design in the room:

The fireplace also has faces carved around it.

The plasterwork on the ceiling is also covered in stunning designs, with points hanging down.

The furniture around the room isn't from the original house, but dates to the mid-seventeenth century: about the same time that the room was in its original use. All the pieces belong to Bristol Museum. Some were definitely by or for Bristolians, judging by the inscriptions:

There is also a bed in the adjoining oak-panelled bedroom, which dates to about 1600 and has still traces of the original painted decoration.

My favourite piece is probably this one;  a high backed chair, the backrest of which folds down to become a gaming table with a handy drawer.

















The opening times for the Red Lodge can be found by following this link to the Bristol council page. I hope that you have enjoyed this glimpse of it.

Constructing a 'super-king' sized bed from timber milled onsite using a chainsaw mill

Two friends of mine commissioned me to make this bed for them and yesterday it was delivered and assembled in their house.
All of the timbers used came from trees grown in the local area. The legs are Douglas Fir, the slats and rails are European Larch and the sides and large slabs of timber in the headboard are made from some very special Lawson Cypress.

A few years ago, some large trees were cut down in Ashton Court, Bristol as part of landscaping work and some of the trunks were left lying around to rot. After getting permission from the estates department, Alex, Bob and I took chainsaw mills there and cut the logs of Lawson Cypress into usable planks.

The trees were well known in Bristol and it was great to be able to use the timber to make something that would be appreciated, rather than it being wasted. After leaving the planks to season for several months, work began on the bed.

I've inlaid a small rectangle of wood into the headboard, which was cut from a piece of driftwood collected on a beach near my friends' house on the day of their wedding.

Constructed the bed was quite a long job as I didn't have the equipment to cut the mortises and tenons efficiently with  machines, so needed to finish off every one by hand. The timbers were also quite tricky to work with. My friend Simon Nugent helped a lot by allowing me to use his planer/thicknesser machine but the softwoods tended to tear unless all of the tools were kept very sharp. The quarter-round pieces of Douglas Fir used for the legs were also very hard to secure firmly when cutting mortises into them.

All of which meant that the work took a very long time!

However, it's great to have tried my hand at building such a large bed and for it to have turned out so well.