Stacks of rough-sawn French oak boards in the Timber Row timber barn, Wickford, Essex

Our Story

Solid oak tables, handcrafted in Essex

Our sister brand, Sorrell & Smith, has been creating exceptional bespoke furniture in our Wickford, Essex workshop since 2022. Its one-off commissions are individually designed, built around carefully selected timber and handcrafted to suit each client’s space, with some extraordinary pieces made from rare slabs costing well into five figures.

Timber Row takes the same workshop craftsmanship and applies it to a more streamlined collection.

Every Timber Row dining table is made to order from just TWO exceptionally wide slabs of solid French oak, carefully selected and joined edge-to-edge to create a beautifully balanced, uninterrupted top with a substantial 37mm finished thickness. Choose your size, finish and base online, and we’ll build your table by hand in Wickford, typically within four to five weeks.

Two brands, one workshop and the same obsession with solid timber and proper craftsmanship. Sorrell & Smith is for completely bespoke, one-off commissions. Timber Row is for customers who want workshop-built furniture without the lead time and cost of going fully bespoke.

A solid French oak Timber Row dining table and matching bench with Designer X steel legs, delivered to a customer's home in Wickford

The makers

One workshop. Two specialities.

Sorrell & Smith is our bespoke side: rare timber, live edges, unusual dimensions and completely one-off commissions built around an individual client’s brief.

Timber Row is deliberately different. We’ve taken what we’ve learned from years of bespoke furniture making and refined it into one exceptional solid-oak table system.

Each top is made from two exceptionally wide slabs of slow-grown French oak, kiln-dried before arriving at our workshop and carefully acclimatised before machining. The two slabs are jointed edge-to-edge to form one beautifully balanced 37mm solid-oak top.

You choose the dimensions, finish and base. We take care of the timber selection, joinery, finishing and final inspection.

By standardising the sizes and keeping our most popular bases ready for production, we can build considerably faster and more efficiently than a completely bespoke commission, without compromising on the timber or craftsmanship that matters.

The people behind it

Meet the founders.

Two co-founders. One workshop in Wickford. Sam builds every Timber Row table; Corey looks after every order from first enquiry to delivery.

Sam Sorrell

Co-founder · Chief Craftsman

Sam has been building solid-wood furniture for over a decade and oversees the making of every Timber Row top, from selecting and jointing the two wide oak slabs through to sanding and the final coats of oil. Every table is inspected and approved by Sam before it leaves.

Corey Smith

Co-founder · Brand & Operations

Corey looks after the other half of Timber Row, from timber sourcing and product development to the website, customer service and delivery. If you call or email us with a question about your table, there’s a good chance Corey will be the person answering it.

Sam Sorrell and Corey Smith on the Sorrell & Smith stand at their first ever trade show in 2022 — Sam (left) and Corey on the Sorrell & Smith stand at our first ever trade show in 2022, with one of the live-edge slabs that started it all.

When Sam and I founded Sorrell & Smith in 2022, the idea was simple: build the sort of dining table we’d actually want in our own homes. Solid timber, properly made, with no veneers, hollow cores or shortcuts.

Since then, we’ve built one-off furniture for homes and businesses across the UK, from huge live-edge dining tables and boardroom tables to pieces more than four metres long and weighing nearly half a tonne. We’ve even been asked to embed a £70,000 watch collection into a bespoke resin table.

But we kept hearing the same question: “Can you make me something to the same standard, without going completely bespoke?”

That’s why we created Timber Row.

We chose one construction method we believe works exceptionally well: two wide slabs of solid French oak, joined edge-to-edge into a beautifully balanced solid top. We then standardised the dimensions, finishes and bases so we could make it far more efficiently.

The result is a genuine workshop-built solid oak table, made by the same people and in the same Wickford workshop, but typically ready in four to five weeks and at a considerably more accessible price than a completely bespoke commission.

And if you’ve got a question, you can still ring the workshop and speak to us.

Corey Smith
Co-founder, Sorrell & Smith Ltd · Est. 2022

Want to see one in person?

Come and visit the workshop.

We understand that buying a solid oak dining table online is a big decision. If you’re within driving distance of Wickford, Essex, you’re very welcome to visit us before ordering.

Come and see the oak in person, feel the finishes, look around the workshop and meet the people who’ll actually build your table.

We’re a working workshop rather than a conventional showroom, so visits are by appointment. That also means you’ll have our full attention while you’re here.

Email [email protected] with a couple of suitable dates and we’ll arrange a time.

Email to book a visit

The Timber Row workshop in Wickford, Essex, front of the building

One of the earliest Sorrell & Smith dining tables, still in service in its owner's home

The first table we built is still in someone's kitchen.

Sorrell & Smith built its first dining table in 2022 for a couple renovating their farmhouse in Surrey.

Three years, two children and several hundred family meals later, the table was still doing exactly what a solid timber table should do: getting used, gathering character and remaining part of the home.

That’s the philosophy behind Timber Row. Solid French oak isn’t furniture we expect you to replace in a few years. It’s something designed to be lived with for decades.

That’s also why every Timber Row tabletop comes with our 10-Year Structural Guarantee, alongside an optional workshop refresh service. After years of use, if damaged and worn over the years, we can re-sand and re-oil the top to bring the table back to the standard it was on the day you purchased it.

Our values

What we won't compromise on.

Solid timber. No shortcuts.

No veneer. No MDF. No hollow-core tabletop.

Every Timber Row top is made from two wide slabs of genuine solid French oak, joined edge-to-edge and finished by hand in our Wickford workshop. What you see on the surface is what you’ll find all the way through.

Slow-grown and properly dried.

We source slow-grown French oak for its beautiful grain, density and character. Just as importantly, the timber is professionally kiln-dried and then allowed to acclimatise before we turn it into furniture.

Good timber matters. Dry, stable timber matters even more.

Straightforward pricing.

Choose your size, finish and base and you’ll see exactly what your table costs. No showroom commissions, no hidden furniture mark-ups and no surprise extras at checkout.

We sell directly from the workshop to the customer, which allows us to put more of the price into the timber and the table itself.

French oak. British craftsmanship.

Our oak comes from France. The furniture is made in Essex.

Every Timber Row tabletop is machined, jointed, sanded, oiled and inspected in our Wickford workshop before it reaches the customer.

A guarantee from the people who made it.

Every Timber Row tabletop is covered by our 10-Year Structural Guarantee against defects in materials, construction and workmanship, subject to our warranty terms.

Our structural joinery is guaranteed for life. If something we’ve made fails because of our workmanship, we’ll put it right.

Direct from our workshop.

No national showroom network. No distributor. No furniture chain taking a margin between the maker and the customer.

Your table comes directly from the Wickford workshop where it was made. By simplifying the range and selling directly, we can offer proper solid-oak furniture at a price that would be extremely difficult to achieve through a traditional bespoke process.

Stacked French oak boards in the Timber Row timber barn in Wickford, Essex

The timber behind every table

Solid French oak, selected for furniture making.

Every Timber Row tabletop begins with kiln-dried solid French oak sourced through specialist sawmills in France.

We select for the things that matter in a dining table: attractive grain, good colour, appropriate moisture content and, crucially, boards wide enough for us to make each tabletop from just TWO slabs.

Using two exceptionally wide slabs rather than building the top from numerous narrow strips gives Timber Row tables their distinctive appearance. There are fewer joins, broader sweeps of natural grain and a much calmer, more substantial look across the finished tabletop.

Once the oak reaches Wickford, it’s acclimatised before being machined, jointed, sanded and finished by hand.

It’s real timber, so every board has its own grain, medullary rays, colour variation and character. No two Timber Row tables will ever be exactly alike.