* website describing 17th c houses and furniture?

[Tombaston]

This is slightly outside family history but I'm hoping someone may already have come across a good website in their research.

My 11 year old son has a school project to build a model of a house including the correct furniture for the period. He has chosen an early 17th century house which we visited two years ago at the Vale and Downland Museum in Sussex. The problem is the furniture. Does anyone know a good website which talks about the furniture for this period or just with a few photos?

I have tried Google but if you put furniture anywhere in the search string all you get are loads of shops. I've also tried Wikipedia with no luck. We are looking for information on pretty basic living, the house is just an agricultural labourer's house with a hall, kitchen with bread oven, a couple of store rooms and two bedrooms upstairs. If anyone's been to Vale and Downland, it's the one called House from Walderton. When we visited I think it just had a small bedstead in one bedroom and straw beds on the floor of the other. I've also looked at a few National Trust websites but their houses tend to be for the nobility with furnishings to match.

I don't want anyone to spend time researching, but if you have already come across a suitable website when looking into how your ancestors lived, could you let us know.

ID:1702

[mapwebster]

Hi,

I'm not sure what you require exactly, however maybe a bit of lateral thinking may help.

Instead of 17th Century you could search for a period name / ruler like Charles II, Cromwell, etc.

Instead of Furnture try Antiques (Google has a few pictures)

Another source could be films if you can think of a film title set in the 17th Century they usually have a fan site with screen shots.

I hope my suggestions send you off on a more successful search.

Good luck

[sallylloyd]

Hi, try searching Sotheby's UK site.  They produced a catelogue full of pictures of 17th century  English oak furniture when my family had to sell my father's collection to paid IHT. The collection contained oak coffers (or chests) and stools from the basic upwards and also cauldrons and reed lights etc. so you should find something to help you there. The name of the catelogue if they still have it was the Sherwood Collection.  If you get stuck let me know and I'll dig out my catelogue and scan a few for you , but I don't want to fill Jane's site with pictures and you will get a better range with full descriptions if you search the online catelogue.

Hope this helps
Sally

[Tombaston]

Thanks both for the suggestions.