Jubilee Oak Table awarded Christopher Claxton Stevens Prize

The Jubilee Oak Table, a stunning 13m long table created from a 5,000-year-old sub fossilised black oak tree discovered in the fens, has been awarded our Christopher Claxton Stevens Prize, presented annually to the most outstanding design that has won a Bespoke Guild Mark in the past 12 months.

The Bespoke Guild Mark recognises excellence in design, materials, craftsmanship and function for exquisite pieces of furniture made as single items or a limited run of up to 12. It is awarded to beautifully crafted pieces of bespoke furniture and, since its launch in 1958, has been the apex of distinctions for UK designer-makers.

The Jubilee Oak Table was a project 10 years in the making that saw a team of furniture makers led by Hamish Low, chairman and lead craftsman of the Fenland Black Oak CIO, Mauro Dell’Orco, lead designer, and craftsman Steve Cook, collaborate on an inimitable ‘table for the nation’.

This unique example of black oak – one of the rarest forms of timber in the world – was first discovered in 2012, the year of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, during routine cultivations on a farm in the Wissington Fens of south-west Norfolk.

Following the unique discovery, a team of specialist craftspeople successfully milled and dried 10 breathtakingly beautiful, consecutive planks unlike anything ever seen before.

The Jubilee Oak Table was designed to display the jaw dropping length of those planks, to illustrate and evoke the sense of wonder at the scale of the ancient high forests.

This effect was achieved by reducing the visual impact of the under-structure: the table has only two pairs of narrowly shaped pedestals joined by a long and slender curved spine which cantilevers by more than three meters each end. Fourteen ribs are fixed each side of the spine to support the planks. The material is bronze, chosen for its embodied permanence and archaeologists refer to this period in history as transitional between the stone and Bronze Age’s.

The bridge construction is both functional, to support the top with the minimum number of parts, and metaphorical, to cross 5000 years of history. To mitigate the liability of size, the two outer planks can be folded down reducing the width of the table to just 900mm. Twelve sets of casters positioned under the pedestals allow it to be moved silently and by just two people.

The design of the top has remained sympathetic to the integrity of the Jubilee Oak. The planks have been retained full length and techniques developed to enable their individual shapes to be highlighted.

The project was completed in 2022, the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, and unveiled at Ely Cathedral by HRH The Princess Royal on 17 May 2022. The table is currently having a year’s residency at Rochester Cathedral, Kent from the 3 March 2023.

The Claxton Stevens Prize, which includes a cash prize of £1,000, was presented to Hamish Low by Alderman Alison Gowman, who was representing the Rt Hon The Lord Mayor Nicholas Lyons, and Amanda Waring, Master of The Furniture Makers’ Company, at the latter’s Installation Dinner at the Mansion House, London, on Thursday 4 May.

Daniel Hopwood, Bespoke Guild Mark chairman, said: “The Jubilee Oak Table is such an incredible achievement and such a fitting celebration of Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, we are proud to award a Bespoke Guild Mark and the Claxton Stevens Prize for such exemplary work.”

Hamish Low, chairman and lead craftsman of the Fenland Black Oak CIO, said: “This project, The Fenland Black Oak Table, is very unusual in that it has been a collaboration between so many independent designer makers coming together to create one object. We are all hugely honoured to receive the Christopher Claxton Stevens Prize as one of the highest accolades in recognition of everyone’s extraordinary contribution and expertise”.