22nd Apr, 2026 10:00
The Country House Auction
836
A George III four-poster bed
A George III four-poster bed hung with drapes and valances, the mahogany cluster-column end posts with stiff-leaf carved detail to top, middle and bottom and terminating in square section columns with plinths, the bolt holes with brass covers, together with a box spring and mattress, 194cm long, 167cm wide, 218cm high
Provenance:By descent from Alice Liddell (later Hargreaves), who was the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll. Following Alice’s death in 1933, the bed passed to her son Caryl, and later to his daughter Mary Jean, who has slept in it ever since. Now in her 90s, Mary Jean has reluctantly decided to offer this bed with its illustrious history for sale.
Footnote:Alice Liddell was just a ten-year-old living in Oxford in the 1860s when Charles Dodgson - better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll - spun a fantastical tale to her and her two sisters Edith and Lorina on a golden summer afternoon by the River Thames.
The bed was originally in the guest bedroom at Cuffnells, the home near Lyndhurst in Hampshire, where Alice lived with her husband Reginald and their three sons in the late 19th and early 20th century..
Read the article here
Sold for £3,000
A George III four-poster bed hung with drapes and valances, the mahogany cluster-column end posts with stiff-leaf carved detail to top, middle and bottom and terminating in square section columns with plinths, the bolt holes with brass covers, together with a box spring and mattress, 194cm long, 167cm wide, 218cm high
By descent from Alice Liddell (later Hargreaves), who was the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll. Following Alice’s death in 1933, the bed passed to her son Caryl, and later to his daughter Mary Jean, who has slept in it ever since. Now in her 90s, Mary Jean has reluctantly decided to offer this bed with its illustrious history for sale.
Alice Liddell was just a ten-year-old living in Oxford in the 1860s when Charles Dodgson - better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll - spun a fantastical tale to her and her two sisters Edith and Lorina on a golden summer afternoon by the River Thames.
The bed was originally in the guest bedroom at Cuffnells, the home near Lyndhurst in Hampshire, where Alice lived with her husband Reginald and their three sons in the late 19th and early 20th century..
Read the article here
Auction: The Country House Auction, 22nd Apr, 2026
Viewing
Sunday 19 April | 10am -4pm
Monday 20 April | 9am - 4pm
