Buckingham Palace

The Royal Collection includes a side table attributed to Ince & Mayhew, which is in the East Gallery of Buckingham Palace.  It is made of gilded walnut and pine and has a marble top.  The frieze has a crouching lion in the centre.   This lion is similar to one on a medallion on a side table supplied to the Earl of Kerry by Ince & Mayhew, as well as one on a serpentine table at Kenwood.[1]

The table in Buckingham Palace came from Woodhall Park in Hertfordshire and was made for Sir Thomas Rumbold. According to Historic England, Sir Thomas Rumbold bought the estate around 1777, from John Boteler for £85,000. Rumbold, who was the Governor of Madras for the East India Company, demolished the remains of the house which had partly burnt out in 1771, building a new one designed by Thomas Leverton in the neo-classical style. In 1782-3, when Rumbold returned from several years abroad, an extensive planting programme was put in hand, with plants supplied by the firm of William Malcolm and Son, Royal Nurserymen and 'Surveyors, Nursery and Seedsmen' of Stockwell (Debois 1985).

Rumbold sold the estate to Paul Benfield in 1794, who sold it on to Samuel Smith (d 1834) in 1801.  Samuel Smith was a partner in the family banking business. He succeeded his father as M.P. for St. Germans, and voted with Pitt over the Regency. Upon Smith's death his son Abel Smith inherited the estate, which continued in the family into the twentieth century.

Ince & Mayhew were Rumbold’s principal furniture suppliers.  A pair of side tables made of sabicu, amaranth and holly, also with marble tops, was sold at Christie’s in 2007 for £156,000.  According to the catalogue notes these tables are linked to the Woodhall Park furniture.  An article was written for Country Life magazine in 1930 about this furniture, mentioning some Grecian tripod candelabra-stands which were inlaid with varie-coloured woods and trompe l'oeil flutes, like the tables.  Sabicu comes from  a West Indian tree and resembles mahogany; amaranth is another name for purpleheart wood. 

Thomas Leverton was responsible for a number of eighteenth century houses, most of which have now been demolished or remodelled, as well as Charing Cross fire engine house.  His works include:

• Woodford Hall in Essex (built 1775 for William Hunt; demolished)
• Watton Wood Hall (now Woodhall Park), Hertfordshire, (built 1777–82 for Sir Thomas Rumbold).
• Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk (built 1792 for Sivanus Bevan; demolished).
• Grocers' Hall, City of London (1798–93; demolished).
• Scampston Hall, Yorkshire (remodelled in 1803 for William Thomas St Quintin).
• Gordon House, Chelsea (built 1809 for Lieutenant Colonel J. Willoughby Gordon).
• Office for the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company, Lombard Street, London (demolished).
• Fire engine house at Charing Cross fire engine house at Charing Cross (demolished).

[1] Lucy Wood, Catalogue of Commodes