UK’s oldest bed still fit for good knight’s sleep

The antique four-poster with its ornate carved headboard has been providing a good night’s rest for residents of the Berkeley Castle estate in Gloucestershire since 1608.

Far from being roped off into retirement like many pieces of historic furniture, John Berkeley, 81, and his wife Georgina, 73, still use the bed in the castle’s Great State Bedroom.

Furniture historians say the style of the bed posts date them to the period 1560-1640.

They believe the royal arms in the middle of the headboard are those of the Stuart monarchy, dating the bed more specifically to the period after the accession of James I in 1603.

The bed was identified by retailer Furniture Village which launched a challenge to find the piece of furniture that has remained in continuous use by the same family the longest.

Georgina Berkeley said: “Despite its great age, it is the most comfortable bed in the castle. Sleeping in such a wonderfully historic bed conveys a real feeling of British history.”

The Berkeley family is recognised in British noble history for having an unbroken, identifiable male line of descent from a Saxon ancestor who lived before the Norman Conquest in 1066.