The Great Bed of Ware is thought to have been built around 1590, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. It was most likely made as a tourist attraction for the inns of Ware, which was a day’s journey from London and a convenient overnight stop for travellers going to Cambridge University or further north. The Bed is first documented in 1596 by a visitor to the town who encountered it in the White Hart Inn, and over the course of the next three centuries it moved to four further Ware inns before travelling to Rye House in Hoddesdon in 1870.

The Bed was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1931, where it remains. The Bed is richly carved with decoration typical of the late-Elizabethan period including acanthus leaves, ornamental ribbon-like patterns, and figures of lions and satyrs which symbolise virility and fertility. The human figures carved onto the headboard and the underside of the tester (wooden canopy) show traces of paint, which indicate that the bed would originally have been brightly coloured. The Bed is mentioned in many plays and other literary works, the most famous being in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1601) when Sir Toby Belch describes a sheet of paper as “… big enough for the Bed of Ware!”. It was first recorded as ‘The Great Bed of Ware’ in 1609, when Ben Jonson referred to it by this name in his Renaissance comedy, Epicoene.

Following a successful Heritage Lottery Fund award, the Great Bed of Ware returned to the town in April 2012. It was displayed in Ware Museum for a year on loan from the V&A and returned there on 7th April 2013. Learn more about the Great Bed of Ware on the V&A’s website.