LARGE WAREHOUSE COMPLEX
Monday - Saturday
9am-5pm,
BY APPOINTMENT
OPEN TO TRADE AND PUBLIC
Winslow Road
Granborough,
Bucks MK18 3NQ
BY APPOINTMENT
01296 532808
07887 834888
Videos
Smart People Buy Genuine Antique Dining Tables From Elisabeth James
Learning how to identify genuine antique dining tables from the junk, worthless fakes and reproductions littering the internet is a tall order unless you’ve spent years within the industry. However, we thought this video of a very good classic format late Victorian oak extending dining table might help as pretty much encompasses all of the design characteristics expected during the period – solid quarter sawn top, heavy gauge runner system, simple clean lines and 100% without fancy veneers and inlays.
Many people comment on how different our website is compared to other companies who also claim to be ’specialists in antique dining tables’. We show our products in their natural unrestored condition and provide expert finishing to our clients’ specification – hence videos of our workshops and the restoration process for your interest rather than just glossy staged photos. We very much appreciate the 5 Star reviews we receive on Google by the discerning clients who have discovered us and appreciate quality originals and the enormous effort our skilled restoration team offer.
Its an absolute shame however that an estimated 90% of people who search for antique tables on the internet actually end up spending ££££Thousands with dishonest companies who are only ‘specialists’ in selling worthless plywood veneered reproductions from the Far East. So a helpful tip if you want to buy genuine product is beware of anything described with the words ‘style’, ‘vintage’, ‘bespoke’ alongside period descriptions of Georgian, Regency, Victorian, etc. or anything listed in a category of ‘antique table & chairs sets’ (these do not exist). Any product description containing any of these words is 99% sure to be a fake.and always ask to see a companies workshops as if they don't employ a large team of restorers then they cannot possibly be selling the large quanity of 'antique' furniture they show on their websites.unless it is simply reproduction.
15ft Original 19th Century Victorian Oak Extending Table
Albeit English oak was only fashionably used for a short period of time in the late 19th Century to construct large extending dining tables it was a period of great wealth in the UK so sufficient were made of the quality to survive and today provide some choice in original Victorian tables of sizes 8ft to 26ft length. Oak is naturally a golden honey colour once seasoned for 100 years but in the finishing process we can achieve anything from a bleached flotsam and jetsam look through to a dark Jacobean. Finishes can be natural wax, hard durable lacquer or classic French polish.
The table on this video has been finished a warm shade in a heat and water resistant French polish after an extensive restoration to make the structure and ergonomics of the runner system absolutely perfect. It now sits in a beautiful period house in Yorkshire.
All of the tables you see on our website are offered prior to restoration, exactly as we find them, until you specify the shade and finish required. Often these large pieces have passed through family generations with little more than the odd dusting. It takes an awful lot of skilled work to bring back to original functional condition, even out the colour accross a huge expanse and finish beautifuly by hand. There are only a few professional antique restoration people left in the UK who are equipped and skilled enough to work on these large pieces by hand using traditional tecniques. Its a very time consuming and costly process, so sadly most of the tables we see on the open market (Ebay, Selling Antiques, etc..) have just been bodged with spray coats of coloured synthetic finish to disguise the problems, which looks attrocious but is very cheap, unskilled work and quick of course!
Large Antique Oak Dining Table Bespoke Hand Polishing
For many of our customers the versatility of a large antique oak extending dining table, its durability and the lighter fresher look achievable to fit with more modern decor are typical justifications to select from our huge stock of 3 to 6 metre genuine Victorian period oak dining tables. Built like battaleships, yet exuding beautiful quality with quarter sawn tops and a variety of hand turned leg designs, these immense late 19th Century oak extending tables make a fantastic addition whether to be very informally finished for an open plan kitchen or more formally richly French polished for dining room setting.
This video is of a Maple & Co 14ft Jacobean influenced dining table selected by our clients for their holiday home in Somerset where they required seating for up to 18 guests, an impressive table with robustness and a durable heat and water resistant French polish to their selected warm honey shade.
Elisabeth James are the only true antique furniture trade supplier specialising in genuine antique dining tables operating in the UK today and also uniquelly offer bespoke finishing to your specification within our trade prices. It will take you 2 to 3 hours to view our extensive stock but if you are looking for huge choice, genuine antiques, top quality and the very best restoration in the UK then we are sure you will enjoy a visit.
Stunning 12 ft Victorian Oak Arts & Crafts Table
This is a stunning 12 ft Victorian Arts & Crafts Table. Sarting at 6ft in length and extending right out to the full 12 with it's unique runner system this table, and others like it, are a real addition to any living sapce! This particular table has been restored to it's original beauty by the team here at Elisabeth James.
We have the largest stock of dining tables here in our warehouse, with over 100 similar pieces to this extending Arts & Crafts table. Don't hesitate to get in contact with myself, Chris, and come and see for yourself....
Large Regency Pedestal Dining Table Hand French Polished to Shade
Here;s another beautiful quality Regency pedestal dining table that our team of hand Frech polishers have finihsed to the clients chosen shde of a mellow Georgian tan shade.
Genuine Regency Dining Table 5 metres with Gillows Reeded Legs
It was Gillows of Lancaster that introduced his Imperial model two part console extending dining table but during this early Regency period extending dining tables took many forms so thought you might to see this stunning 18ft example from C1815. Regency dining tables are often considered to be the pedestal format with sabre leg bases but actually these were rarely made in comparison to the fine leg extending designs.
This particular Regency period dining table would be amongst only a few hundred existing n the World today of this size to seat up to 22 people and with its stunning run of hand cut figured timbers and very fine legs is certainly one of the most elegant examples we've seen. With a lovely D end shape and a great deal of versitility the table incorporates four extension leaves and has the ablity to form two seperate tables and break down to put to the side of a room or be moved easiliy to another room.
Tables of this superior Lapada/Bada standard will be on sale in professional antique furniture shops in London for £50,000+ but here at Elisabeth James Antiques we have no retail overhead and as the Uk's only trade specialist in antiue dining furniture all of our 450+ genuine antique dining tables are sold at a fraction of the retail prices.
Sets Antique Dining Chairs - CHEAPEST professional specialist in the UK!
As the only professional trade antique dining furniture supplier in the UK offering bespoke hand finishing and upholstery work it would be easy to assume that there might be a high price to pay for this service. Amazingly there is not! We are literally selling quality original sets of 6 to 30 chairs for the same price as the tacky imported Third World slave factory reproductions our so called competitors sell (listed as 'Style' all over the internet) and often the unrestored sets on the ameteur selling platforms such as Ebay, Selling Antiques, etc..
Here at Elisabeth James OUR PRICES INCLUDE all of this work and our team of 11 skilled in house restorers can hand finish to match your table too, so everything matches perfectly and you also choose the fabric or leather cover. So with prices somewhere between £220 and £350 for a finished chair in a rare large period sets then easy to understand that we are in fact the CHEAPEST supplier of quality original antique dining chairs in the UK! Guaranteed!
5 Metre Regency Pedestal Dining Table with leaf cabinet
Large genuine antique Regency pedestal dining tables are very rare. The table on the attached video at 18ft length would be one of the largest genuine 19th Century examples in the World today. Combining four extension leaves to adjust for guest numbers and in this instance we created a leaf cabinet to store them at the clients request.
We typically hold in stock over 50 Regency dining tables of the pedestal extending design and these come in length forjm 2 metres up to the largest we've ever stocked at an amazing 10 metres length. All antique pedestal dining tables are in mahogany but each is different, possibly with crossbanding, line inlay, reeded edges and the sabre leg bases have various design nuances also.
Offering very elegant formal dining the Regency period of pedestal design has been revived throught the late 19th Century and into the early 1900s with the Edardians adopting the Georgian and Regency furniture fashions and designs greatly. Today many companies are also supplying imported plywood factory made Regency 'style' reproductions on Ebay and other ameteur websites so do be carful if you are looking for a genuine antique version.
7 Metre 19th Century Regency Pedestal Dining Table - BEFORE & AFTER
Typically we have in stock over 50 genuine antique pedestal dining tables for sale in lengths from 2, 4, 5 and up to 10 metres long, These are real antique dining table, NOT the Far East fake cheaply make plywood 'style' Regency tables you will find on Ebay and with cmpanies simply commiting fraud,
5 Metre Antique Regency Mahogany Pillar Table
It takes 2 to 3 weeks to hand French polish a large antique dining table to this standard. Every one of our 450 genuine antique dining tables in stoack are restored and hand finihsed to our customers specification. This service is UNIQUE IN THE WORLD.
3 metre Triple Pedestal Regency Mahogany Dining Table - BEFORE & AFTER
Here's a video showing before and after the extensive restoration and polishing work by our team for another very happy customer who wanted a good quality10ft antique pedestal dining table hand French polished to ther chosen shade. With a great deal of pride and entheusiasm we are one of the last true antique furniture specialist with an in house team of 11 highly skilled restorers who transform our extensive stock of genuine antiques with a bespoke finishing service for our clients.
The antiques market is now sadly largely in the realms of ameteur supply where consumers often wouldn't know what they were getting for their money with so much badly restored sprayed brown fodder on Ebay and other unregulated ameteur paid for advertising websites. Unbelievably, also there are also companies claiming to be 'antique dining table specialists' that have simply flooded the market with tacky imported factory plywood reproductions, listed them as antiques everywhere with the word 'style' carefully slotted in the desciption to avoid consumers understanding the appropriate product description of 'reproduction' or 'fake'.
Search 'Regency Style Pedestal Table' on Google and you'll certainly find at the top of the listings which companies to avoid if you don't want to buy a reproduction/fake 'antique' dining table!
ONE OF THE LARGEST STOCKS OF GENUINE QUALITY ANTIQUE FURNITURE IN THE WORLD!
Yes, there is Ebay, Selling Antiques, Antiques Atlas, Love Antques, etc. where ameteur hobby 'antique dealers' sell typically low quality badly restored or unrestored furniture described as 'antiques' but have you ever considered where the REAL antique trade professionals are that don't charge the high Lapada and Bada prices but do sell stunning genuine pieces? Where you can find a huge stock of orginal antique furniture pieces from all periods for every room of your house and where true skilled professional restorers deliver West End standards but at a fraction of the price? And all at one location just north of London?
WELL YOU'VE JUST FOUND US, SO WELCOME!!
12ft Antique Oak EXtending Dining Table Arts & Crafts
Demonstration of a late 19th Cenntury oak Arts & Crafts influenced extending wind out dining table which has been through our restoration process to once again to perfectly crisp as the day it was made back in C1890. No other company in the UK offers this uniquelly high standard of traditional hand craftsmanship at the very low trade prices we provide to all of our clients.
Original Georgian Mahogany Extending Dining Table With Gillows Reeded Legs
Here's a table we prepared for a london exhibition and took a quick video in our yard. As it happens we sent the video to a client looking for a good early table as a sample of the standard of our resoration and particularly a demonstration of top end hand French polishing. The table never got to London as client loved it from the video and now lives in Germany together with a beautiful set of Georgina chairs and a sideboard.
Early period tables as large as this are extremely rare these days but we do get them from time to time if we can intercept them before they get the high end retail dealers and the silly prices attracted. This table was £15k but would have attracted a price of £25k upwards if not from our 'cowshed' in the boonies!
Large Antique Regency Pedestal Dining Table 26ft, 8 Metres
Elisabeth James Antiques always have around 30 Regency extending pedestal dining tables in stock. Currently the largest is 32ft in length and there're always plenty at 8ft,10ft,12ft and over.
Here's video of a rather smart 26ft pedestal table our team have been hand, French, polishing for 3 weeks, shortly on its way to a new home in Berlin.
Plenty of Chinese plywood reproductions are on the market on Ebay and a couple of 'antiques' companies near London, so if you are looking for a genuine table beautifully hand finished please get in touch anytime.
The Restoration Process
Here at Elisabeth James antiques our team of 12 highly skilled personel (the largest in the UK) use the best and most original restoration methods to achieve your desired outcome.
We appreciate that it isn't always easy to understand how the bare-boned antiques in the warehouse can be transformed into the amazing pieces that we deliver, despite the examples that can be found in the workshop. For that reason we felt it important to document the restortion process of a project that we recently completed to show you exactly how we do it!
Fine quality early Victorian Mahogany EXtending Table with 'West End' full French polish
Takes about 10 days to hand polish a table to perfection. Elisabeth James Antiques have a team of 11 restorers including 3 of the top French polishers in the UK, possibly the World. Many visitors comment, 'I've never seen polishing like this before' and they'd be correct. Unless you have visited a top London Lapada or Grosvener House fair you will not see the standard of finishing the Elisabeth James team achieve anywhere else in the UK.
Just a shame we are not so good at taking videos yet but we'll get the hang of it soon!
Antique Mahogany Library Writing Desk
Elisabeth James usually have around 30 antique desks in stock from smaller 4ft pedstals, 6ft partners and large library wring desks up to 10ft.
Here's a smart library desk polished with hand tooled tan leather. We do the leather work in house with a team of 11 highly skilled restorers so it's possible to find perfect desk for you in any size, style or period.
Take a tour of our warehouse
Come and see for yourself. We are open 7 days!
Many folk are bit surprised when they first visit our warehouse. Most common initial comment is 'Aladins Cave, wow' followed by 'yes, cup of tea please' then 'where do we begin'. What's for certain is that everybody enjoys hunting around what really is a converted grain store in a rural courtyard farm setting (even the kids seem to have fun!). Stacked to the gunnels with original period furniture, mainly covering usable home furnishing but pretty much everything you can imagine to furnish a period home top to bottom.
We don't spend any time on presentation here (as you can see from the video !!). The hard work is put into mainting a quality stock and managing our clients projects with bespoke restoration in our workshops.
There are very few professional antique fiurniture trade envoronments selling untouched and professionally restored pieces remaining in the UK but Elisabeth James are proudly upholding the standards and a huge stock for you to see on a visit anytime.
Hope to see you soon!