Oak Four Poster Beds

A four poster bed is a frame with a post at each corner carrying a tester, the rectangular frame overhead that ties the posts together. Historically the tester carried curtains, and the curtains were the point: they kept the heat in and the household out. Today almost nobody hangs them, and the bed is chosen for what the frame does to a room.

That is worth saying plainly, because it is what most people are quietly worried about. A four poster does not have to look like a stage set: left undraped in oak it reads as architecture. Every one is made to order, in your timber, to your mattress and to your ceiling.

The two we make

The carved four poster, #961. The dressier of the two. Carving is run to the posts, the headboard and the tester rails, so the bed carries detail at eye level from the doorway and again when you are lying in it. How much carving is a decision rather than a fixed specification: we make this pattern with heavy carving throughout, and with it confined to the headboard and tester frieze.

The plainer four poster. The same architecture with the ornament taken out. Posts turned to a baluster profile — the swelling, vase-shaped section — or cut square with a bevel to the inside edge, a framed and panelled headboard and a plain moulded tester.

Between the two sits the option most clients take: a plain frame with carving on the headboard alone. We also make a Gothic four poster, with tracery to match the Gothic collection, often in cherry.

Ceiling height — the question everyone asks first

Measure floor to ceiling where the bed will stand, at the lowest point if there is a beam or a sloping section in the way, and send us that figure at the start. It drives the design.

A four poster is not a fixed height. The posts are cut to suit the room and the tester can be set lower without the bed looking wrong. Where the ceiling genuinely will not take a full tester, the honest answer is a half tester, with the canopy over the head end only, or a panelled bed with nothing above mattress height at all.

Mattress depth matters too, because a deep modern mattress eats headroom under the tester.

Can it be dismantled and moved

Yes. That is how the bed is built, not a concession. It is made as a kit of parts — four posts, a headboard, a footboard or foot rail, side rails and the tester frame — and assembled in the bedroom. It comes apart the same way, with hand tools, and goes back together in a new house.

Jointed posts are standard on the #961 pattern. Each post is made in sections with a concealed joint rather than in one length, and that is the detail that makes the bed genuinely movable: a jointed post will turn a staircase that a full-height post never would, and it goes back together without the joint reading from across the room. It is part of the pattern, not an extra to ask for.

What has to fit up your stairs is therefore the longest single component, not the finished bed. Tell us the stair width, the turn and the tightest doorway, and we will confirm delivery before anything is cut.

Drapes, or no drapes

Three options, and none of them is wrong.

Undraped. The most common choice now. The frame is the whole effect, and the carving earns its keep because there is nothing covering it.

A pelmet only. A shallow frame of fabric around the top of the tester, which softens the rectangle overhead without closing the bed in.

Full curtains. Four corners and a head curtain, in your own fabric.

To be plain about where our work stops: we do not supply tester rails, tracks or fixings, and we do not make curtains. The tester is left ready for a curtain maker, in solid timber they can fix into wherever the design requires. That is the arrangement most clients prefer in any case, because the curtains are chosen with the rest of the room and made by the person making the rest of the soft furnishings. Tell us at the design stage that curtains are coming, and we will draw the tester with that in mind.

Timbers

Oak, cherry, mahogany and walnut are the standard four, and the four poster is made in all of them. Oak is much the most common.

Specials, quoted on application: character oak; pippy oak in light, medium and heavy grades, used in the headboard panels rather than the posts; oak selected for medullary ray, within or without the timber; and clean timber with no knots at all, which is the choice on a carved pattern where a knot spoils a run of ornament.

Finishes: polished, painted, limed, sand-blasted, rub-through paint, natural, or colour matched to a sample. We can match furniture that is 100 years old to new reproduction purchases made the year before.

Order free timber and finish samples. A bed post is a large area of one colour, and two oak shades are not a small difference.

Made to your size

We commonly make 4ft 6in wide with a 6ft 3in mattress length, 5ft wide with a 6ft 6in length, and 6ft wide with a 6ft 6in length. Any other size is possible.

Common changes: post height cut to the ceiling; post section made heavier or lighter; footboard replaced with a plain foot rail or removed; headboard raised to clear a deep mattress; carving added, reduced or moved. See bespoke, commissioning and the other forms on the beds page.

The structure is guaranteed for as long as you own the bed — the frame, the posts and the joints — with ten years on ironmongery and finish. Our guarantee sets out the position in full.

Prices

Guide price on request. Quoted by size, timber, finish and the amount of carving, which is the variable that moves the figure most. Standard lead time is typically ten to twelve weeks, and a one-off commission typically four weeks longer.

Frequently asked questions