This is named after one of the great furniture designers of the Georgian age. Thomas Sheraton was born in 1751, in Stockton. He originally worked as a cabinet-maker, later designing occasional tables. Later still, he was ordained a minister in his native town – a devout Baptist, he returned to Stockton in the early 1800s to lead its Baptist congregation.

An illustration and text about The Thomas Sheraton

The text reads: Thomas Sheraton ranks alongside Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite as one of the ‘big three’ English furniture makers of the 18th century.

Sheraton was born in Stockton-on-Tees in 1751 and apprenticed to a local cabinet maker. He continued working as a journeyman cabinet maker until he moved to London in 1790, aged 39, where he set up as a consultant and teacher of architectural and cabinet design.

From 1791, whilst he did not have a workshop of his own, he became widely influential after he published The Cabinet Maker’s and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book, in four volumes, which attracted over 600 subscribers, mainly cabinet makers and joiners from all over the country.

He later published The Cabinet Dictionary (1803), and in the year before his death he published the first volume of The Cabinet Maker, Upholsterer and General Artist’s Encyclopaedia (1805).

Furniture described as ‘by Sheraton’ refers to his designs, not pieces he made. His name is associated with a style of furniture based on Classical architecture. A superb draughtsman, Sheraton set the style of his era.

A passage from The Daffodils, by William Wordsworth

These last two lines of the poem, which the poet considered were the best, were contributed by his wife, who (before her marriage) was Mary Hutchinson – educated in Stockton-upon-Tees.

External photograph of the building – main entrance