FASHIONS IN BEDS

Evening Star, Issue 23527, 16 March 1940, Page 20

FASHIONS IN BEDS

PATCHWORK QUILTS TO MATCH Fashions in beds, like most other things, have changed with the years, since the old chest, which was the first piece of real furniture, served the purpose of a seat by day and a bed by night. One of the most picturesque was the elaborate four-poster introduced into England in the fourteenth century, and which went out of date last century. Many of these old four-posters now occupy places of honour in some of the world’s most famous museums. At one stage of their history beds were so enormous as to take the whole family of father, mother, and several children. This arrangement was not only for the sake of economy, but for warmth. In the history of the early colonisation of. North America one reads of these huge beds, whose size was largely dictated by the intense cold of the North American winters. Patchwork quilts were made to match the size of the family, and some of these, too, are in museums or are treasured as family heirlooms. In the middle of the nineteenth century a simpler type of bed was introduced to Great Britain and began to displace the handsome but rather unhealthy People paid more attention to fresh air and hygiene, and it was realised that sleepers ought to have a better circulation of air than the stuffy four-poster allowed. So n simpler type of bedstead was made in brass and iron. Then, too, box springs and wire mattresses came into general use, and while sometimes fitted to the four-posters, they , were an additional excuse for displacing the old-fashioned! bedsteads with well-sprung iron types. Smaller rooms came into_ fashion, and so the fate of the beautiful old fourposter was decided. Wooden bedsteads returned to favour later, hut in very different guise, and designed to harmonise with the rest of the furniture. Period wooden bedsteads copied from old designs—Tudor, Jacobean, Sheraton —were made, and became a most graceful feature of the room, and these are popular to the present day. Even the four-poster has been revived, but with modification, and with or without the canopy, but without curtains.