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Traditional English Woodwork, Dorking (2026)

27/10/2026

‘Wrighting’ an Ark 2: ‘Clamping’ the front (and back).

A few more steps in making the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust riven oak arks that have featured in several recent posts.

The front and backs on arks like this were generally each formed of three boards - a wide horizontal rail joined to two vertical legs by a full width mortice and tenon joint. It is a construction that became known as ‘clamp-fronted’ and is found on some early chests too.

The shoulders on the long tenons on the rails were cut with a tenon saw. The tenons are ‘bare-faced’, only having a shoulder on one side – the unprepared inside of the chest. The riven timber being used allows the cheeks of the tenons to be split down to the shoulder cut rather than sawn – much quicker and easier on a wide joint like this.

The mortice and tenon joints were draw bored together with pegs, a technique that involves boring the peg holes through the tenons in the rails slightly closer to the shoulder of the joint than those through the morticed legs so that when the pegs are driven in they pull the joint tightly together. We will pick up on chopping out the mortices in the next post.

25/10/2026

‘Wrighting’ an ark: 1. Arkwrights and winding sticks.

Arkwright, meaning ‘ark maker’ is a known surname. It was clearly a recognised occupation in its own right, although it does not appear to have ever had a dedicated guild or livery company. So what is involved in making a riven oak ark?

We have recently shared posts on riving the timber for two that were commissioned for The Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust, along with a reel of one being constructed. This is the first of a series of posts looking at some of the steps and hand tools involved to 'wright' that rough riven timber into a finished ark.

Once the timber has been sourced, the first stage in most projects involves preparing it, making it flat and true enough to work on. Machining timber can quickly produce timber flat and square on all faces and edges. Doing all that by hand is intensive physical work, particularly when working with the irregular sections of timber that has been riven (split) rather than sawn from the log, making it prudent to limit preparation to just the essential surfaces. In most cases that will be one ‘face’ surface, and at least one edge square to it.

Preparing the face surfaces of the arks first used winding sticks, a matching pair of long, straight, sticks, one placed at each end of the board to accentuate any twist in it. Without any twist, the closest stick will completely hide the other when sighting through from end to end - if twisted, one end of the further stick will be peeping up. A rebate plane was used to work across the grain removing any high points under the winding sticks until they sited through level to each other, leaving a ‘true’ margin at each end of the board.

A wooden jackplane was then used to remove the material between the two true margins resulting in a flat face surface to work from.

Where there was a significant amount of wood to remove between the true end margins a side axe was used to split out the bulk before finishing with the jackplane. With the help of a try square, a straight edge was then planed at ninety degrees to the flat face, giving the all-important ‘face and edge’ to set everything else out from.

23/10/2026

Images from the past are such a rich resource! With all the usual caveats for historical sources, they give us some great glimpses into daily life, what the world might have looked like and the woodwork that played its part in it. Here is an illustration from the fourteenth century 'Vie et miracles de Saint Louis'.

Looking beyond the intended subject matter of the characters acting out the scene, the set captures some interesting incidental information. Check out for example the detailed image of a joined cradle with shaped, maybe turned, finials to the four corner posts. The four panels visible appear to be framed with muntins that suggest mitred corners where they join the top rail, and the panels have a clear border shown. The green colour chosen by the artist for the cradle suggests it is painted, so maybe the panel border is a painted detail too, or could it perhaps represent an applied moulding that the artist drew the line (or rather didn’t draw the lines) at going any further with the detail? Or could they maybe have captured an early example of a raised and fielded panel? It would be a lovely thing to replicate, but we wonder, which of those would be the correct interpretation?

Credit and huge thanks to brilliant writer Elizabeth Chadwick for introducing the image by sharing in a recent post.

21/10/2026

Small riven oak ark for Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust - step by step in one minute. This ark has popped up in a few posts recently. Here is a whistlestop tour through the process of making it from riven boards to finished ark (and a heap of shavings) with just hand tools. There is loads that could be said about each image, we will share some of the key stages in individual posts over the coming days, but do fire away with any questions in the meantime.

16/10/2026

So, what wood goes into making a riven oak ark? Here are some step-by-step shots of a small one made for The Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust that has popped up in a couple of recent posts.

Riving timber, splitting rather than sawing it from the tree trunk, is easiest over the shortest lengths possible. Having cut the round log to an appropriate length, it was first split through the centre into two semi-circular halves. The halves were then split again through the centre into quarters, and the process repeated again and again, reducing the pieces into ever thinner ‘cake slices’ until roughly useable dimensions were reached (pics 1 & 2).

Wide boards were required for the front and back horizontal rails and side panels, roughly the full width of the available material (pic 3). The four vertical ‘legs’ were narrower and needed reducing in width. Splitting the legs to width was far quicker than sawing. The split was started in the appropriate place with a cleaving axe (pic 4) before being opened up with a froe (pic 5). The cleaving axe has a thin tapering edge that finds its way easily into the fibres of the wood. The froe is driven into the resulting split, rocking the handle ‘to and froe’ opens it up and continues the split down the length of the board. The narrow off-cuts from each leg were retained to use for the side rails (pic 6).

The front and back of the ark are each made up from one wide horizontal board that will be joined, between two narrower vertical legs (pic 7). This three board construction is known as a ‘clamp-front’ – the front clamped between the legs with a long mortice and tenon joint. Chests of this construction are known as clamp-front chests. It is a technique common in the medieval period but less so as time progressed and large trees yielding the wide boards required became increasingly scarce.

The boards for the sides and top of the ark required reducing in thickness and were once again split with the froe. Controlling these wide splits requires the straightest grained timber possible and keeping similar amounts of wood either side of the split to help ‘balance’ it and prevent it running off in one direction or the other (pics 8 - 11). Once split, the two halves can be opened up like a book with the grain matching identically in reverse on either side (pic 12).

The top of each ark required three riven boards held between two end pieces. The clamped front and back required three boards each and were joined together with two wide side boards (pic 13). A couple of narrow rails help secure the sides, and with the addition of a wide board for the floor, and that’s pretty much all the materials sorted – sixteen pieces riven by hand, ready for preparing and joining by hand. More on that to follow.

13/10/2026

A recent post introduced riven oak arks, a couple of which we had the pleasure of making some time ago for The Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust. It was a great project and we will share some step-by-step shots of their construction over coming posts, but to set the scene, here are few more shots of the finished articles.

The arks, one large and the other smaller, were both made with removable lids to double up as both kneading troughs and trays for carrying the proven dough to communal ovens, features found on many period examples. The riven oak is split rather than sawn from the round log, by first halving it into two semi-circular sections before halving them again into quarters and then continuing to halve the resulting segments again and again until the required thicknesses are reached. It is a process that produces distinctive ‘cake slice’ tapering boards displaying the distinctive large light medulary rays of the oak at their best. It also results in particularly stable boards unlikely to twist or cup. All these features can be clearly seen on these arks.

Its fascinating to compare the newly finished arks to them when popping up more recently online via the The Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust after a number of years of ‘living history’ by the hearth in Mary Arden’s House. A great example of the colour change oak goes through over time and use.

11/10/2026

Ironwork - it locks, latches, hangs, hinges, holds together, decorates, and does those things that wood sometimes simply can't. We have been celebrating all that in recent posts on some great collaborations with some great blacksmiths - do check them out for loads of info on oak and iron coming together.

09/10/2026

Chips and shavings – amazing how the piles build up working by hand!

This heap was generated making the small ark shown behind it using just hand tools – a great project for The Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust working alongside the late Victor Chinnery who did so much to further the study of early oak furniture. Made from riven timber, split from the tree, as many period arks were, it’s a project that deserves a few more posts – so stay tuned or follow to see how some of those shavings were produced.

Arks were used to store dry food produce like grain, the tops often detachable and reversable to double up as troughs for kneading and proving dough, and sometimes (as our example) shaped to accommodate 'stretcher' poles for carrying the dough to communal village ovens. There is a link to more information on the period examples shown that are owned by the Trust in the captions and comments.

02/10/2026

Oak and Iron 8. Fixings

Sometimes ironwork gets to share the spotlight with oak but more often than not it quietly performs functional tasks. Maybe simple things like nails holding boards together, as in this boarded box for Shakespeare’s Birthplace, or the boarded door shown for Smallfield Place. And, sometimes iron performs like the practical hook holding the star of the show, like a cup on a dresser or delft rack.

But even the seemingly simple can involve more than it appears. Check out the delightful detail that’s been put into the cup hook shown – the delicate taper of the tang that will drive in and bind easily, the twist to the shaft, and the gentle diminishing down into the delightful little ‘piglet tail’ at the end. The hooks are easy to miss on the finished Cumbrian dresser they were used on.

There is often a lot more to nailing than meets the eye too. Nails on boarded constructions will often be ‘dovetailed’ – deliberately driven in at opposing angles rather than straight, a technique that prevents the joined boards pulling apart by the nails pulling out. Simple, but effective. It can be seen in the detail of the Stratford box showing the nails ready for driving home. The nails can also be ‘barbed’ by forming nicks in the shank that the grain of the wood will compress around and bind the nail in securely – the equivalent of modern ‘annular ring’ nails.

For even greater security, nails can be clenched – a technique used on the Smallfield door, where deliberately overlength nails were driven right through the vertical boards on the front of the door and the horizontal braces on the back, then clenched by folding them over in the form of a staple. The clenched nails shown are older ones salvaged from similar doors we replaced at Bisham Abbey.

30/09/2026

Oak and Iron 7 (OK, or not Oak and Iron 1): Ash Table.

This latest in a series of blacksmith collaborations is slightly different to the others to date. Its ash rather than oak for a start, and a bit more of a contemporary than traditional commission. The top came from a stunning ash tree we have used most of in various projects. The older growth at the centre of the tree has darkened, something that often happens in ash trees of a substantial age, the wood often being referred to as ‘olive ash’ as it does look quite like olive wood. The later growth is white with a stunning ripple and figure. You can clearly see the transition in the top, two thirds of which is formed from a single plank, the remaining width made up from an adjacent plank book-matched through the lighter wood before transitioning back into the darker heartwood again towards the outer edges on each side of the top.

The ash top sits on a purpose made iron base commissioned from James Davies at Forest Green Forge, a great collaboration. The ash chairs were part of the same commission. The ash tree has yielded at least four other tables to date, all of more traditional style, and a stunning desk. They deserve being shared together at some point. There are still a few table top boards remaining - so speak up if you fancy one!

Traditional English Woodwork

27/10/2026

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16/10/2026

13/10/2026

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30/09/2026

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