Trestle support

Four-legged folding trestles

A fixed, non-folding trestle

A trestle support (called as well trestle legs) is mainly a horizontal piece of wood fitted with divergent legs. Two or more trestles can support a board or several planks, forming a trestle table or trestle 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. 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.^{[citation needed]}

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

Heraldry[]

Trestles in the medieval House of Stratford coat of arms^[1]

The trestle (also tressle, tressel and threstle) is (rarely) used as a charge in heraldry. It is symbolically associated with hospitality (as historically the trestle was a tripod used both as a stool and to support tables at banquets).^[2]

Table with two free-standing four-legged trestles. Château de Beynac, France.

See also[]

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

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 Publishing Inc., 1985.