20/06/2026
✨✨We are absolutely thrilled and very grateful to be included in the HTSI, Financial Times The Escape Issue. Thank you Jo Ellison Clare Coulson and Katie Webb for the opportunity to share the story of our Suffolk Trestle Table, designed by Jim Parsons, made by Woodbridge and Waldringfield Boatyards and sold by The Merchant's Table ✨✨
Extracts from Clare Coulson’s article… Please buy the whole paper, its a fantastic bumper issue!
‘Susanna Cook never intended to be a shopkeeper. Then the graphic designer for brands such as La Fromagerie and Pump Street Chocolate fell for a Georgian-fronted store in the Suffolk market town of Woodbridge. The building, whose deeds date back to the early 17th century, was originally a merchant’s house. It had traded as a clockmaker, a saddlemaker, a gun shop and a much-loved antiques shop before Cook commandeered it in 2017 for The Merchant’s Table’.
‘In 2023, Cook commissioned local furniture maker Jim Parsons to make the Trestle Table, crafted in Suffolk oak using traditional techniques. The elegantly pared-back piece of furniture is one of her most popular items; it has an almost constant waiting list. So when Parsons had to take a step back from work, Cook came up with a novel solution: she asked local shipwrights if they wanted to collaborate. Matt Lis, who runs the historic Woodbridge Boatyard, didn’t hesitate. “It’s a table, but so much of it is also a boat,” says Lis, pointing out the commonalities in construction. The legs are crafted in a similar way to a mast. The curved “bows” of the trestles are steam-bent, and then secured with a spoke and wedge, like the “treenail” fastenings used on boats. The tabletop’s oak boards are secured with copper nails and roves, just as wooden clinker-built boats are constructed plank by plank. “It’s the same way that the Vikings built their boats,” says Lis. “It hasn’t been refined because it doesn’t need to be refined.”
