Oldest Piece of Furniture Still In Use in Britain
Antiques, Berkeley Castle, England, History
A furniture retail chain, as a promotion for British furniture, set out to find the oldest piece of furniture still in daily domestic use in Britain.
I don’t suppose their search was absolutely exhaustive, but they did find the Berkeley Bed, listed in a 1608 family inventory, used by 15th generations of the Berkeley family, and still being slept in by John Berkeley, 81, and his wife Georgina, 73, in the Great State Bedroom in Berkeley Castle, site of the presumed murder of Edward II in 1327, and the third oldest continuously-occupied castle in England after the royal fortresses of the Tower of London and Windsor Castle), and the oldest to be continuously owned and occupied by the same family.
Lady Georgina Berkeley testified to the Telegraph that: “Despite its great age, it is the most comfortable bed in the castle.”
