A beautifully crafted chess set at Olympia's Off the Shelf pavilion has been made from a London plane tree we rescued from just around the corner on Kensington Palace Gardens.
Join us on a quick journey from tree to chess pieces with designer Lauren MacDonald – and if you're feeling inspired, take a look at our latest London plane boards for sale online.
Outside the Japanese embassy
Kensington Palace Gardens – home to royalty, oligarchs and countless embassies – is one of the most expensive streets on the planet. It's lined with London plane trees, two of which were felled in 2023 due to root rot.
Instead of letting the timber go to waste, we salvaged the main stems that would otherwise have been chipped and burned.
Beautiful plane grain
At our timber yard, we milled the trees into planks and left them to season for over a year before they were ready to be crafted into furniture... and chess pieces.
London plane has the most extraordinary grain – when freshly milled, it even has streaks of purple in places.
Crafting the chess pieces
Renowned designer Lauren MacDonald wanted to use locally sourced materials for her installation in Olympia. She loved the idea of crafting something from a tree felled just over a mile away in Kensington.
Lauren talks about her design
Her chess board installation, 'The London System' is open to the public to play at Olympia's Off the Shelf pavillion until the end of February 2025.
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