Vintage Parkland Teak Benches

Vintage Parkland Teak Benches, circa 1950.

Rare pair of early/mid-20th century, weathered, teak, garden benches.

The back rails carved with verses from ''God's Garden'' by Dorothy Frances Gurney, ''The Kiss of the sun for pardon'', The song of the bird for mirth'', ''One is nearer God's heart in a garden than anywhere else on earth'', with central owners monogram ''WW.''

The slatted back and seat between open arms on square section supports and side stretchers. The seat rails with central brass discs ''B Maggs & Co, Queens Road Bristol''.

These characterful benches are weathered to a beautiful silver grey and durable as the natural oil in teak ensures they can sit for decades in the landscape.

Its very hard to date these benches due to the durability of teak and they could have been made in the 1930s.

Provenance : Private Collection, English parkland.

Dorothy Frances Gurney 1858–1932 English poet.

The Lord God planted a garden,
In the first white days of the world,
And He set there an angel warden,
In a garment of light enfurled.

So near to the peace of Heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren,
For there in the cool of the even,
God walked with the first of men.

And I dream that these garden-closes,
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod.
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden,
Than anywhere else on earth.

For He broke it for us in a garden,
Under the olive-trees,
Where the angel of strength was the warden,
And the soul of the world found ease.

Maggs & Co., Queen's Road, Clifton

Established in the mid 19th century (1850) in Bristol, England as a manufacturer of beds. The company displayed it's iron and brass bedsteads in a showroom at 15 St. Augustine’s Parade and grew to become a more general manufacturer and retailer of furniture, trading from a department store at 70-72 Queen's Road which was damaged along with many other buildings in the street during the blitz of the Second World War. Maggs & Co closed in the 1970s.

Dimensions

Price

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

Condition report