‘Sleep Tight – Don’t Let Anything Bite!' - The Great Bed of Ware

History, Ghosts, Medieval, Sixteenth century

‘Sleep Tight – Don’t Let Anything Bite!’ – The Great Bed of Ware

Arguably, one of the most visited and famous objects in the V&A, is the Great Bed of Ware. Looking at it you might ask Why? It’s just a bed. However, peel back the covers and the history and folklore surrounding the bed will reveal how truly special it is.

Miss_Jessel

March 9, 2025

9–14 minutes

famous beds, Great Bed of Ware, haunted bed, historic bed, huge bed, Inns of Ware, Tudor

In England, there exists a very special bed whose origin has become shrouded in a blanket of myth. It is, of course, The Great Bed of Ware. The Great Bed of Ware can boast two things: first, it’s one of the most famous pieces of English furniture in the world, and second, according to the Victoria & Albert Museum’s (V&A), it’s the most expensive showcased piece of furniture that they ever purchased. Costing £4000 in 1931[1], the V&A acquired the bed for the nation through a grant from the National Art Collection Fund[2], narrowly saving it from being sold overseas and lost to the British nation forever.

A Bed Like None Other

The enormous four-poster bed is over 267cm high, 326cm wide, and 338cm deep[3]. It’s made from oak, a wood popular in the medieval period because of its durability and the fact that, unlike the more expensive walnut, it was widely available. It was also, due to the grain, easier for craftsmen to work with[4].

Great Bed of Ware, 1590-1600 V&A Museum no. W.47:1 to 28-1931. (VAwebteam at English Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 3.0 <http:// creativecommons.org /licenses/ by-sa/ 3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons)

The bed frame is decorated with arched panels of marquetry (different types of wood); acanthus leaves (a popular motif at the time that it was made); elaborate strapwork (ribbon-like patterns); lions and satyrs (common symbols of fertility, lust, and vitality which make a lot of sense as bed imagery); human figures (male and female) on the headboard, and swans (possibly symbolising the River Lea that runs through Ware[5]). There are also inlaid panels showing imagined buildings. This type of inlay work was a specialty of Protestant German joiners who had settled in Southwark and set up workshops in the area in the sixteenth century [6].

Traces of paint on the headboard, are a reminder that when the bed was made it would have been brightly painted. There are also initials on the bed, either scratched into the wood or made from red wax seals. These initials were probably made by guests who spent the night in the bed[7]. In its heyday, the bed must have been an extraordinary sight, and sleeping on it must have been an unforgettable experience.

Research has revealed that the bed was constructed during the reign of Elizabeth I. However, for many years, the bed was believed to have been made about a hundred years earlier in 1463, a date that is painted on the bed[8]. Why someone added this date to the bed is a mystery but this date has become intrinsically linked to the bed and is now part of its folklore. The frame of the bed is thought to have been made by the school of Hans Vredeman de Vries[9].

A Publicity Stunt and Curiosity

It isn’t really known why such a huge bed was made, (the idea that it was made for a monster can probably be dismissed[10]) but it is generally assumed that it was built by the innkeepers of the inns of Ware, as a publicity stunt. Large beds were not uncommon in public houses where space was at a premium and travellers often slept in the same bed to save money, but the Ware bed must have been unusual even then, considering how famous it became. Why did the inns need a gimmick? The changing religious and political climate of the time might offer a clue. For hundreds of years, Ware had been a regular rest stop for Catholic pilgrims visiting the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. The pilgrimage route was so well-known that it was still referred to by an Elizabethan writer (possibly the celebrated poet, William Warner[11]), as ‘Walsingham Way’[12], even after the shrine was destroyed in 1538[13], as part of Henry VIII plans to convert the country to a different form of Christianity. With the shrine gone, a valuable source of income for the town was lost and another means of attracting visitors to Ware might have been urgently needed.

It’s possible that the hosts of 5 of the town’s inns decided that the best way to increase revenue was to work together and invest in an enormous bed that would become a public attraction. This idea of collaboration between the inns may also explain why after the bed was initially displayed at the White Hart, it was later moved between The George, The Crown, The Bull, and the Saracen’s Head – probably not an easy feat. Eventually, after nearly 300 years, it was time for the bed to leave Ware.

Great Bed of Ware in Saracen’s Head, Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, December 1877. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

There is some confusion over the exact date that the bed was bought by Henry Teale [14], but most sources agree that in 1870, the bed could be found at Teale’s Rye House in Hoddesdon. Rye House was a former medieval fortified manor house that had been in 1834, converted into a workhouse. Teale bought Rye House in 1864 and turned the house and land into a tourist attraction and pleasure gardens for railway travellers wanting a break from the cities[15].

In 1904, the Teale family sold the estate to Christie and Co. of Hoddesdon Brewery who eventually turned the property over to Cannon Brewery of London in 1928. The bed remained at Rye for a further 3 years before being sold to Frank Patridge, a London dealer,[16] from where as we mentioned before it was bought by the V&A and found a permanent home. Whatever the reason why the bed was made, it has remained an object of curiosity to this day.

William Shakespeare Public Domain NPD Collection via Wikimedia

A Bed and A Bet

The earliest mention of the bed was by the German tourist, Prince Ludwig of Anholt-Kohten. He described, many years later, that in July 1596, while staying at the White Hart Inn (and very likely sleeping in the bed), how ‘At Ware was a bed of dimensions so wide, Four Couples might cosily lie side by side, and thus without touching each other abide.’[17]. How many people could fit in The Great Bed of Ware may have become something of a talking point. The London Chronicle in July 1765, wrote about how in 1689, the bed had became the centre of a bet. Apparently, 26 butchers and their wives agreed to spend the night in it! Not sure how they would have physically managed it, but it would have sure given a different meaning to the expression ‘sleep tight’.

The Legend of The Great Bed of Ware

The bed was so famous in the Elizabethan era, that it was even mentioned by Shakespeare in his play, Twelfth Night. In the play, a character, Sir Toby Belch describes a sheet of paper as ‘big enough for the Bed of Ware’. It was also referenced in Ben Jonson’s 1609 play The Silent Woman, in George Farquhar’s 1706 play, The Recruiting Officer, in The Virginians by William Makepeace Thackeray in 1858, and by many other authors, poets, and writers over the years. As to be expected, a bed this well-known was of course going to eventually create its own legends and myths.

Most of these legends and myths involve a man by the name of Jonas Fosbrooke, but who was Jonas Fosbrooke? Many of the accounts of the bed and its origins suggest that Fosbrooke was the bed’s maker. He was believed to be a craftsman of German origin, living in Hertfordshire in the latter part of the 1500s (probably based on the date on the bed). However, there is an alternative line of thought. According to the V&A museum page, the name Jonas Fosbrooke, first appeared in 1839, when The Great Bed of Ware was featured in a London pantomime. This could imply that Fosbrooke was a fictional character made up for the play. Then again, maybe the people who wrote the pantomime knew something about the bed that has now been forgotten or were simply repeating a well-known legend that had long been associated with the bed.

Whatever the truth, the name Fosbrooke is now a permanent part of the bed’s legend, and his ghost, a rather vicious and violent poltergeist with a superiority complex, has been over the years blamed for many of the bed’s guests’ unfortunate nightly experiences.

16th Century Carpenter. From Pfister Paul, Amb. 317b.2 ° Folio Mendel II. Image courtesy of Nuremberg City Library.

A Bed Fit for a King

It is said that in 1463, Jonas Fosbrooke made the bed as a special gift for King Edward IV. The King was so delighted with his present, that he gave Fosbrooke a pension of 40 marks a year, which was a good sum in those days. Unfortunately, when the King died, the pension died with him, and the bed passed into other people’s hands. Fosbrooke was so annoyed that the bed was being used by people of a lowly status that after he died he made a point of returning to haunt the bed. This usually meant that any poor unfortunate guest would be pinched, scratched, and nipped all night, get no rest, and have such a terrible time they would never attempt to spend the night in it again [18].

The Labour of Harrison Saxby

Another well-known tale about the Great Bed of Ware involves a man, who despite knowing the bed’s haunted reputation, decided to risk it for love. This man was Harrison Saxby of Lancashire. Saxby was the Master of the Horse to Henry VIII and as all good stories go, he fell in love a girl above his station. This girl was the daughter of a miller and maltster from Chalk Island[19]. As he was of a lower social status and she already had several suitors, his chance of winning her hand was slim. Fortunately for him, she was in a pickle, as she was having difficulty deciding whom to choose. The lady’s dilemma came to the ears of the King, who decided to help. He gathered all the would-be suitors together and issued a challenge. The lady’s hand would go to whoever could spend an entire night in the haunted Great Bed of Ware. The besotted Saxby took up the challenge. We don’t know what happened to Saxby during the night, but it must have been extremely unpleasant. In the morning it was said that he was found more dead than alive; in a state of exhaustion; and with bruises, lacerations, scratches, and bites all over his body[20]. He survived and got the girl – I hope that they had a long and happy life together!

Reenactors at Hampton Court. Image by Lenora.

A Drink to the Bed’s Health

As well as the folklore attached to the bed, there was also a somewhat quirky custom that became associated with the bed while it was at the Crown Inn. It was said that a person on seeing the bed for the first time, would raise a mug of ale and drink to the health of the bed[21]. Maybe it was to protect anyone who slept in the bed, placate its ghostly maker, or was simply an excuse to drink. Personally, I think it was later as it seems to have been done in good spirits.

The Ale-House Door” (Henry Singleton, c. 1790) Public Domain via Wikimedia

Final Thoughts

The Great Bed of Ware is an extraordinary survivor, the only one of its kind in the world. Whether it was made for a king, a monster, or as a publicity stunt, it has been a source of amusement, fascination, and speculation for over 400 years, and long may it continue to be so. And on a side note, maybe the ghost of the bed’s maker is at last placated, as being a museum piece, it is very unlikely that anyone will ever again spend the night in his bed.