“Mouseman” furniture has never gone out of fashion and currently auction prices are riding high. Last week I made my way to the village of Kilburn to visit Robert Thompson’s Craftsmen showroom and gaze at the wonderful, mouse adorned, furniture on offer.
Below a white horse, you can find a mouse
Below the figure of a white horse cut into the chalk of Sutton Bank, on the southern edge of the North Yorkshire Moors, sits the village of Kilburn. The small village is typically picturesque, consisting of a few houses, a pub, a church, a couple of farms and a camp site.
Kilburn is a lovely place but being off the main road it wouldn’t normally get a mention in any touring guide. It does however, because of the presence of a smart but modest workshop and shop. This is the home of probably Britain’s most famous woodworking company, Robert Thompson’s Craftsmen Ltd. Their signature carved mouse is a sign of quality and desirability. This extends to whenever their items come up for sale in antique shops, fairs and auction rooms.
When I was a lad… actually the village looked much the same
I grew up in a large village on the northern edge York. My parents got a car in about 1975 and the North Yorkshire Moors became a regular day trip for the family. I guess I would make my first visit to Kilburn about then. Certainly for my father, a keen woodworker himself, Robert Thompson’s was already a place of pilgrimage and wonder.
I don’t have many memories of Kilburn back then, but I don’t think at lot has changed. I do recall seeing stacks of air-drying oak planks around the grounds of the workshop, and even around the village. Those stacks are no longer so obvious, but I suspect that’s more because of their value than anything else. Lots of people have cars these days and air dried oak probably cost in excess of £100 a plank.
With my parents I was taken to various buildings (mostly churches) to find items adorned with a mouse. I recall that the large benches at one time outside York City Library had mice on them. As a child I always insisted on finding them when visiting the library. My enthusiasm for Robert Thompson’s furniture never waned and on an early visit to York with my future wife we visited Kilburn. She was captivated. We’ve spent the intervening 35 years looking out for and (very) occasionally buying items from Robert Thompson’s.
The “Yorkshire Critters”
When you start to look for mice on oak furniture, you’ll soon come across other carved animals and motifs. These are the “Yorkshire Critters”. The origin of the different critters owes much to the workshop of Robert Thompson and their training of apprentices. As some of the apprentices developed their skills they opted to set up on their own, mostly in the same area. Much of their work is similar to, and to the same standard, as Robert Thompson’s but with their own emblem.
The one significant difference is that whilst Robert Thompson’s workshop continues, many of the other critters have retired as their masters did the same. Their products of course live on. It’s almost inconceivable that anyone would throw away any piece of Yorkshire Critters furniture, not least because most owners understand its value.
There is plenty of information on the internet regarding the various makers of the “Yorkshire Critters”. If you’re planning a visit to the area you should do some research beforehand to see who you can visit. I will just give a mention to two that I’ve been to in recent years: Squirrelman and Beaverman furniture. Both are well worth a stop.
Quality comes at a price
Even the most modest of pieces of Yorkshire Critters furniture is going to cost you quite a lot of money. There are good reasons for this; the items are hand made, to exacting standards, from an expensive material.
When you visit Robert Thompson’s (or any of the other Yorkshire Critters workshops) you can watch craftsmen (and women) working with hand tools that you may not have seen since school, or indeed ever. For me, watching a guy set up and use a Number 7 Jointer plane was more exciting than it probably should have been. I’ve seen Jointers them for sale but I’ve ever seen one used. As an amateur woodworker (yeah, like father, like son…) I could have watched all day. Another guy was planing oak end-grain, (with a Number 5) as easily as if it was softwood. It’s these skills that you have to pay for.
The other big cost is the raw material. I know, oak grows on trees, but “Yorkshire Critters” timber has to be carefully selected. Crucially, it also requires slow seasoning. The seasoning for a standard one inch plank is at least two years. This is as far from the stuff used by high street “oak furniture” stores as you can get.
Second hand and older doesn’t mean better
Generally speaking, when you compare the second-hand price of an artisan product sold through an auction it will be significantly cheaper than buying the new equivalent. Unusually, this isn’t the case with “Yorkshire Critters” furniture, especially when it’s got a mouse on it. Some collectors target older Mouseman items believing them to be of better quality or even that Robert Thompson made them himself. If you start down that path I think you need to be careful not to mistakenly overspend.
Robert Thompson started work around 1920 and died in 1955. That means the majority of “Mouseman” furniture that comes up for sale originates since his death. This leads to a price bias where the earliest pieces of work command a higher resale price. However, without additional evidence, it’s not generally possible to attribute any particular piece of work to the man himself or even to a date prior to his death.
Just because a piece looks old doesn’t mean it is. Today when you buy a new item you can choose the finish colour. In recent years light oak has been far more popular than dark oak for furniture, but that doesn’t mean all dark finished items are old. After twenty years of daily use, the unwary might mistake any item to be older than it actually is. You should also consider that even a very early piece of Robert Thompson’s work is only just “antique” in the classic sense. As such, none of it is all that old. You can walk into almost any saleroom or antique shop and buy much older oak furniture.
The counter-intuitive cost of second-hand “Yorkshire Critters” furniture
So before you take the plunge at an auction or in an antiques shop, check the Mouseman website. Compare the current list price for the equivalent item with what you might have to pay second-hand. Don’t be at all surprised to find you can buy the item new at a lower price, and if you have chance to visit the workshop you’re in for a treat. You’ll also be helping to keep a great tradition alive.
If you’re interested in other “Yorkshire Critters”, buying second-hand is often cheaper. The price of furniture with a mouse on it still trumps the other critters. Personally, I think this is unfair and a shame. In the same room as me as I write this, there’s a small Beaverman table that I’d happily compare to the equivalent from any other critters’ workshop. In truth, I only bought the table because I was online for another piece and the table wasn’t attracting any bids at all so I got at the opening price. Coming home with table we don’t really have room for would normally elicit a few comments, but not when it has a beaver carved in it.
Restoration
Owners of “Yorkshire Critters” items usually look after them. Oak is very robust and hard wearing and Critters’ furniture rarely develops faults. However once in a while you’ll see items come up for sale with some damage, most commonly disfiguring wear such as water stains or ring marks. These items can be worth buying because, assuming the damage is relatively superficial, restoration is always possible. Robert Thompson’s offer a restoration service and indeed we saw some pieces they had restored themselves, ready for resale. If sending items back to Yorkshire is too expensive, there are furniture restorers all over the country and good one should be able to get your items back to their former glory for relatively little.
