people

[robert.hill]

who owns the great bed of ware

[shaneystar]

The last time I saw it it was in the Vand A.

The bed dates from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and is mentioned in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, in Byron's Don Juan and in George Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer. It measures 11 feet x 10 feet and was built by a Hertfordshire carpenter, Jonas Fosbrooke. It was originally at the White Hart Inn at Ware, but it was at the Saracen's Head in the town throughout the early 1800s. In 1870 it came into the possession of William Henry Teale, the owner of Rye House which he had converted into a pleasure garden. He put the bed on display there and it became a great attraction. In the 1920s, the pleasure garden began to decline in popularity. Rye House and the Great Bed were then owned by Christie's brewery. The brewery sold the bed in 1928 and three years later it was acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum.
This is from an article on the bbc website.It was a big long link so didn't post it as sometimes they don't work.