How an acorn planted in the 18th century becomes the heart of a 21st-century Silverlining table.

Furniture is no longer just an accessory, it is not limited by its functionality and it can be a piece of collectable, one you inherit, or buy for the value it brings to your home, with an added rich narrative dipped in history. Silverlining, is one such furniture-making company that is as different from the large-mass producers that we find a dime a dozen, combines time-honoured craftsmanship techniques with the latest technologies to create one-off pieces.

The team who worked on the piece of wood that has a history that goes back to many centuries, explains the process to us: The Land, Sea, and Sky table features English brown burr oak from 1773 names. It incorporated an 18th-century brown burr oak, which the Silverlining team sourced five years prior. The oak tree was planted in 1773 at Castle Howard in England, to celebrate the birth of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle. Brought down during England’s Great Storm on the night of 15th October 1987, the 214-year-old tree remained where it fell for over 25 years and became colonised by parasitic fungi. The fungus stained the natural pale, honey-coloured wood of the fallen tree a darker brown, creating a desirable type of wood known as brown or tiger oak. The ancient oak also had numerous rounded outgrowths called burrs, which form when a tree undergoes stress. As the wood within a burr grows in a deformed manner, it is highly figured and therefore greatly prized for its beauty and rarity.