Trestle support

A trestle support (called as well trestle legs) is mainly a horizontal piece of wood fitted with four divergent legs that serve, together with at least another one of the same type, to hold a board or several posts forming a temporary table or desk.

They can be classified mainly in two families:

• Fixed trestle legs
• Folding trestle legs

Trestle table

A trestle table is a form of table improvisation. In shape and manufacture it sometimes resembles certain variations of the antique field desk which was used by officers not too far from the battlefield. Basically, a modern trestle table is a plank of wood set on two trestles.

For instance, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and top Amazon executives usually worked on doors set on trestle supports, as a visible example of a frugal company culture.

In the United States, a table or desk supported by X-shaped trestles is usually called a sawbuck table.

Heraldry

Trestles in the medieval De Stratford coat of arms

The trestle (also tressle, tressel and threstle) is (rarely) used as a charge in heraldry, and symbolically associated with hospitality (as historically the trestle was a tripod used both as a stool and to support tables at banquets).

See also

• Trestle table
• Trestle desk
• List of desk forms and types
• Stretcher (furniture)

References

• Gloag, John. A Complete Dictionary of Furniture. Woodstock, N.Y. : Overlook Press, 1991.
• Moser,Thomas. Measured Shop Drawings for American Furniture. New York: Sterling Publlishing Inc., 1985.