The history and meaning of the cast-iron Britannia pub table

“Wait – how old is this pub table?” That’s what we asked ourselves recently while sitting in The Swan With Two Necks in Bristol, our pints wobbling about on a slab of cracked marble on an black-painted iron base. Pubs can have this time capsule quality – a sense that you’re surrounded by objects and decor from more than a hundred years ago. Not only surrounded by them, in fact, but using them in everyday, practical ways. Even if the pub has been refurbished fifty times since it was built, and even if the Victorian pub furniture was bought at auction in 1998. All we knew about the table at The Swan was that it is of the type usually referred to as a ‘Britannia table’. But why are they called that? Who first made them? And when were they made? A Britannia table at The Ship, Bristol. Google didn’t cut it, time to get out the books Search “Britannia tables” and you’ll get hundreds of spammy pages or marketing-led blog posts from auction houses and antique stores. Some of them promise to…