Introduction to Garden Furniture

1. History of garden furniture

The first Oldrids store was opened in Boston, Lincolnshire in 1804 by John Oldrid and Richard Hyde. The store expanded through purchase of neighboring buildings until it encompassed many separate sites, including a furniture store on New Street.

The current Oldrids Boston building was constructed in 1970, following the demolition of the former building in 1969. A move into out-of-town stores followed in the 1980s including the construction of Downtown in Wyberton Fen, on the outskirts of Boston, in 1981 and Downtown Grantham, at Gonerby Moor, in 1989. The Grantham branch was a tie up with Boundary Mill stores, who lease half of the building.

A separate garden centre was added to the site in 1998. ExpansionFurther expansion took place in 2013 when Lincolnshire Co-op decided to exit their department store business, transferring their homestore branches in Lincoln and Gainsborough to Oldrids, although retaining the leaseholds themselves. All staff transferred across as part of the deal and the stores were rebranded Downtown and Oldrids respectively.

In 2016, Central England Co-op sold their Westgate department store in Scunthorpe to Oldrids, who later rebranded it to Downtown in the September. The store had previously operated as Upton's and Binns (owned by House of Fraser), with the entrance way to the building still sporting the Binns name in stone to this day. It currently operates as the chain's outlet centre, with the top floor selling discounted products.

ClosuresIn June 2017 it was announced that the Downtown Lincoln store previously purchased from Lincolnshire Co-op would close, with Oldrids citing it as 'loss-making'. The store closed a month later. Oldrids also announced that they would not be renewing the lease for their Gainsborough department store, leading to its closure in January 2018.

In July 2020, Oldrids announced that their original Boston department store would not reopen following the COVID-19 pandemic in an attempt to ensure the future viability of the business, bringing to an end the use of the Oldrids brand name and their two hundred year history in the town. The out-of-town Downtown stores outside of Boston and Grantham would continue to trade.

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2.

Description of garden furniture

The settlement at Fort Drummond contained military structures as well as private houses. The settlement was centered around a parade ground fronting on the west side of the bay. Military barracks and commissary were located on the west side of the parade ground, and officer's quarters were haphazardly placed in the area.

A "boulevard" ran along northward from the parade ground a good 2,000 feet (610 m), while a military road continued southward of the parade ground to the shore. The section of land east of the boulevard, between the boulevard and the bay, was reserved for gardens, while houses were built on the west side of the boulevard. The boulevard was lined by a row of poplar trees on each side.

Some of the houses were substantial, and a few were two stories. Other houses were "bark lodges," made of a pole framework covered with cedar. Kitchens for the houses were located some distance away, and much of the cooking and baking was done in a public bakery reserved for that purpose.

The cemetery was located to the west of the fort, some ways up the ridge rising from the bay. The cemetery was platted at 100 by 150 feet (30 by 46 m), and enclosed by a cedar rail fence. The cemetery likely holds around 300 people, many of the burials dating from the scurvy outbreak in the winter of 18156 and the smallpox outbreak of 1824.

Many of the grave markers are now located in the Drummond Island Museum. A lime quarry and kiln is located south of the town; this location was likely used to produce mortar for the chimneys. A saw mill was also located north of the town; this may or may not have been contemporaneous with Fort Drummond, but evidence of sawn logs in the fort buildings was confirmed.

Some of the islands in Whitney Bay were also used by the fort, with the fort surgeon living on one and another used for artillery target practice. As of 2012, the Fort Drummond site is private property, and the site is only viewable from the water. At least one of the remaining chimneys has been incorporated into a cabin.

The Fort Drummond site contains 74 features, most of which are the remains of chimneys and structural platforms. There are also two wells, two wharves, and a cemetery. Faint traces of foundations can still be seen.

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3. Van der Nootska Palace of garden furniture

Van der Nootska Palace (Swedish: van der Nootska palatset) is a palace located at Sankt Paulsgatan 21 in Sdermalm, Stockholm, Sweden. The house was built in 1671-1672 by architect Mathias Spieler for the Dutch-born Swedish military officer Thomas van der Noot.

The facade has pilasters and festoons and the middle part is decorated with mermaids in the sandstone. Two wings frame a small garden. The building was first used as a residence for various Dutch ministers.

In 1740, a second building was erected that was used as a church for the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1770 it was made into a tobacco factory. In the late 19th century the building was in disrepair and was threatened with demolition.

The house was saved by Jean Jahnsson, owner of C.G. Hallberg, who turned it into a private residence.

Architects for the renovation and expansion in 1903-1910 were IG Clason and Agi Lindegren. Jahnsson gathered a rich collection at the palace, including mainly Swedish silverware, a collection of hundreds of spoons from the 15th century onwards, porcelain, an unmatched collection of precious bejeweled gold boxes, Swedish miniatures, art furniture, Swedish engraving portraits and a library about much more than 100,000 volumes, including nearly complete collections of Swedish dramatic literature and Reformation writings, Swedish history books and documents etc. Jahnsson was hit hard by the Kreuger crash in the early 1930s, in which he was stripped of his wealth and forced to leave the Van der Nootska Palace and auction off most of the collections.

Stensund Castle was sold to Carl Matthiessen, 1933, and the weapons collection auctioned off . The remainder of Jahnsson's collections from Van der Nootska, which mainly consisted of the Stockholmiana Collection, were donated in 1942 to the Stockholm City Museum of Axel Wenner-Gren, who in February 1938, had bought the Van der Nootska Palace. The Stockholmiana Collection consisted of about 5000 images and about 3000 books and pamphlets.

From 1940 the building was used by Sweden's Lotta unions who used it as a headquarters. In 1943, the building was renovated by architect Rolf Engstrom. Since 1988, the building has been used primarily for conferences and banqueting and is now owned by the City of Stockholm.

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4. Bagshawe Gallery of garden furniture

The collection of rural crafts and trades held at Stockwood Discovery Centre was amassed by Thomas Wyatt Bagshawe who was a notable local historian and a leading authority on folk life. Bagshawe was born in Dunstable in 1901 and became a director of the family engineering firm.

Bagshawe began a small private museum in Dunstable in 1927 and became the honorary curator of Luton Museum in 1928. He later became the museums director. Thomas Bagshawe and Charles Freeman, who succeeded Bagshawe as curator in 1936, visited many of the Scandinavian museums which were at the forefront of folk life museums in Europe.

Both were heavily influenced by the Scandinavian example and they sought ways to introduce the ideas and methods they had witnessed into Luton Museum. In 1938 a rural industry gallery was opened at Wardown designed on Scandinavian principles with built-in cases and freestanding exhibits. The museums annual report of that year described Luton as being at the centre of a large area that was rapidly being transformed, and that the disappearance of many rural crafts was imminent.

During the 1930s and in the years immediately after World War II, Bagshawe undertook a systematic search of Bedfordshire villages to seek out the surviving crafts folk. He interviewed them and acquired artefacts from them. Bagshawe also amassed a large amount of notes, photographs and illustrations and carefully classified them all using the Royal Anthropological Institutes British Ethnography Committees system.

This gave the collection greater detail than was typical at the time. In addition he donated to the museum his large collection of books on agriculture, local trades, crafts and related topics. In 1954 Bagshawe offered all his collection to Luton Museum.

The archaeology and occupational collections were a gift conditional upon the purchase of his ethnographic collection (furniture, treen, ceramics etc.) as well as the provision of suitable display facilities for the illustration of Bedfordshire occupations. The rural life gallery at Luton Museum remained on display until the 1970s when the then curator decided to change the gallery to one showing aspects of Luton life and history of the town.

The collection is now housed in Stockwood Discovery Centre. Coordinates: 515158N 0002521W / 51.86611N 0.

42250W / 51.86611; -0.42250 (Stockwood Craft Museum)