A hayrake table is a distinct pattern of

table Table may refer to: * Table (database), how the table data arrangement is used within the databases * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and column ...

produced as part of the English

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

in the early part of the twentieth century. Its distinctive feature is the arrangement of the lower

stretcher A stretcher, gurney, litter, or pram is an medical device, apparatus used for moving patients who require medical care. A basic type (cot or litter) must be carried by two or more people. A wheeled stretcher (known as a gurney, trolley, bed or ...

between the legs as a double-ended Y-shape. The shape of each end, and their

joinery Joinery is a part of woodworking that involves joining pieces of wood, engineered lumber, or synthetic substitutes (such as laminate), to produce more complex items. Some woodworking joints employ mechanical fasteners, bindings, or adhesives ...

, was based on traditional English craft woodworking and the construction of wooden

hay rake A hay rake is an agricultural rake (tool), rake used to collect cut hay or straw into windrows for later collection (e.g. by a baler or a loader wagon). It is also designed to fluff up the hay and turn it over so that it may dry. It is also use ...

s. The stretcher is not merely a simple Y shape, but its junction is braced by a T-shaped joint, as was needed for the work of a rake. Some modern reproductions simplify this to a plain Y, abandoning the design's original roots. These tables are best known as the work of

Ernest Gimson Ernest William Gimson (; 21 December 1864 – 12 August 1919) was an English furniture designer and architect. Gimson was described by the art critic Nikolaus Pevsner as "the greatest of the English architect-designers". Today his reputat ...

and his associates the

Barnsley brothers Ernest (born Arthur Ernest Barnsley (1863 –1926) but known as Ernest Barnsley) and Sidney Howard Barnsley (25 February 1865 – 25 September 1926) were Arts and Crafts movement master builders, furniture designers and makers associated with Ernes ...

and

Peter Waals Peter Waals (30 January 1870 – May 1937), born Pieter van der Waals, was a Dutch cabinet maker associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. Arts and Crafts Born in The Hague to Jan van der Waals and Lena Alida Maria Loorij, Peter Waals was the ...

at their Daneway workshops in

Sapperton, Gloucestershire Sapperton is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire in England, about west of Cirencester. It is most famous for Sapperton Canal Tunnel, and its connection with the Cotswold Arts and Crafts Movement in the ea ...

. Other Arts and Crafts designers of the period also produced them, particularly those in the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds ( ) is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedroc ...

such as Gordon Russell Timber used in their construction was, as for other Arts and Crafts work, locally grown English hardwoods. Most were produced in

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

although some, like the original hay rakes, were made in ash. The design varies between makers, mostly in its details. Gimson's tables are considered the finest and the canonical example of the design. Their edges are heavily

chamfer A chamfer ( ) is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fur ...

ed, a typically Gimson feature, which is derived from the finishing of the original agricultural tools. This chamfer also has the practical benefit for a table stretcher of reduced wear from feet on an otherwise sharp edge. Gimson's distinctive use of gentle stopped chamfers evokes the framing of Gloucestershire wagons. Gimson's tables also have their edges finished with bands of

chip carving Chip carving or chip-carving, ''kerbschnitt'' in German, is a style of carving in which knives or chisels are used to remove small chips of the material from a flat surface in a single piece. The style became important in Migration Period metal ...

or sometimes with

inlaid Inlay covers a range of techniques in sculpture and the decorative arts for inserting pieces of contrasting, often colored materials into depressions in a base object to form Ornament (art), ornament or pictures that normally are flush with th ...

bands of light

holly ''Ilex'' () or holly is a genus of over 570 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. ''Ilex'' has the most species of any woody dioecious angiosperm genus. The species are evergreen o ...

and dark bog oak. Peter Waals produced the tables for some time after the death of Gimson and, as with many of his pieces, updated their Arts and Crafts detailing to follow the post-war fashions of

Modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

. Although less well-known than some other iconic Arts and Crafts pieces, the hayrake table remains a popular design to this day. They are produced both commercially and as plans for hobbyists.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Style Guide: Arts & Crafts
Victoria and Albert Museum Arts and Crafts movement Tables (furniture) Woodworking