For some reason I never considered a tree stump as essential workshop equipment until I met Richard Maguire.
Maguire, a lifelong furniture-maker and bench-builder, uses a stump and an axe in his shop and counts it among his essential workshop kit. I’ve always favored sawbenches (yup, I hew on them), but I am coming around to Richard’s way of thinking.
Especially after playing a few (OK, 126) rounds of the Hammer Schlager game, the best stump game ever.
This week Suzanne Ellison sent me this photo from the Victoria & Albert Museum archives. Lady Hawarden Clementina took this photo at Dundrum House circa 1858. It is a fascinating photograph. Not only for the workbench, the chest in the foreground and the awesome hats, but for the stump and the axe.
— Christopher Schwarz