Oak Document Chest with Tambour Door and 6 Drawers

• Oak - Native to Europe and England, oak has been used for joinery, furniture and building since the beginning of the medieval civilisation. It is a pale yellow in colour when freshly cut and darkens with age to a mid brown colour.
  
  Oak as a furniture timber was superceded by walnut in the 17th century, and in the 18th century by mahogany,
  
  Semi-fossilised bog oak is black in colour, and is found in peat bogs where the trees have fallen and been preserved from decay by the bog. It is used for jewellery and small carved trinkets.
  
  Pollard oak is taken from an oak that has been regularly pollarded, that is the upper branches have been removed at the top of the trunk, result that new branches would appear, and over time the top would become ball-like. . When harvested and sawn, the timber displays a continuous surface of knotty circles. The timber was scarce and expensive and was used in more expensive pieces of furniture in the Regency and Victorian periods.
• A/f, as Inspected - The letters "A/F" or "as inspected" as part of a description is the cataloguer's shorthand for "all faults" or "as found", meaning the item has some type of damage or deficiency, it is of uncertain date or provenance, and/or that the seller takes no responsibility for the completeness of the item or the accuracy of the description.
• Tambour - A form of folding shutter formed by narrow widths of wood with the flat side glued to canvas, and used on some writing desks, sideboards and other cabinets.
  
  The tambours may run vertically and enclose some stationery compartments, such as in a lady's writing desk. Or the tambours may run horizontally, such as in a Cutler desk, and form an enclosure for the whole of the writing surface.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• chests of drawers, material - oak 332