Enthusiasms

This Month: Dummy Boards

- LUKE HONEY'S

Antiques, alas, are often not what they initially claim to be. Take the ‘cricket’ table, which has nothing to do with the game of cricket; the ‘Armada’ chest, which is entirely unrelated to the Spanish Armada; the ‘cock-fighting’ chair, to which cock-fighting is irrelevant, or the ‘witch’ ball, which, despite its romantic association, is more likely to have been used as a Christmas decoration in 19th-century Germany.

The same can be applied to the historic dummy board, which people with active imaginations sometimes describe as 17th- and 18th-century burglar alarms. As much as I like that theory, I’m taking that one with a pinch of salt. In truth, I suspect that dummy boards were no more than fashionable, whimsical diversions – elaborate jokes, popular in an age very different from our own.