In the second in our Meet the Makers series Matt Stephenson visit Treske Furniture in Thirsk.
There’s a timeless spirit about the towns and villages in the Hambleton and Ryedale districts of North Yorkshire: despite the traffic that zooms through on the busy ‘A’ roads, there’s a feeling that the Kilburn White Horse looks down on the landscape and sees that not everything has changed.
A certain constancy and a respect for tradition underpin the work of Thirsk-based furniture company Treske - and a definite ‘Yorkshire-ness’ too.
“We’re a small company, everybody knows everybody here,” explains CEO Justin Bartlett. “We’re part of the fabric of the town, most of our people live here, we’re an important part of the community and that keeps us rooted in the locality.”
Treske was established in 1973 by ex-Ampleforth College pupil John Gormley – who, despite being a Londoner by birth, found his spiritual home under the gaze of the monumental White Horse and decided to establish his business in Thirsk.
Thirsk appears in the Domesday book as Tresche, the name deriving from the Old Norse for fen or lake. Tresche /Treske/ Thirsk – are different ways of spelling the same thing.
The influence of the Benedictine monks at Ampleforth was clear in Gormley’s approach at Treske, a sense of the Benedictine values of community, stewardship, hospitality and discipline being at the heart of the business, which still occupies the same old maltings that Gormley moved into more than 50 years ago.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a growing interest in self-sufficiency and craft, and Treske can be seen broadly as part of that movement.
Local apprentices literally lived on the premises, learning age-old skills from time-served cabinet makers, eating with Gormley and family at the end of the day, sitting on Treske chairs at Treske tables and sleeping in Treske bunks.
The furniture itself was simple and elegant whilst being robust and well-made, Shakerish-style for a Yorkshire farmhouse, kind-of Habitat-meets-Ercol: “Yorkshire furniture for Yorkshire people with Yorkshire timber.”
Gormley was well-known around local markets and fairs, where he’d set up stall and sell direct to the public. Some years later, and a few miles up the A1 from Thirsk, Gormley’s youngest brother Anthony – also an old Ampleforthian - would also produce work that blended elements of the White Horse with certain religious overtones – the Angel of The North quickly became one of the UKs most-loved works of public art.
In parallel with making furniture for the home, John Gormley also began to produce ecclesiastical furniture – again, the Ampleforth education clearly played a part, a feeling for church buildings being close to Gormley’s heart.
“It’s a side of the business which is still incredibly important to us today," explains Bartlett.
