Chookchook2 and louisep2012, Thanks for your posts. I live in Spain, the temps are presently around 35 - 40ºC in the heat of the day. The fir is exposed to the sun for between 3 to 4 hours. The rest of the time it is in shade. The fir is in a large pot on the patio and it would be impossible to thrust my hand down through 15 inches of soil! It is certainly not waterlogged. We changed the pot a week ago as the previous one had broken. There did not appear to be any problems with the roots at that time. The fir was well 'watered in' and apart from the centre, is green, as you will see from the photos attached to my first post. A friend of a friend is a gardening "expert" and has a programme on the local radio. From a verbal description he has guessed that it may be a root problem as an infection would be unlikely in a pot with no other firs about! HIs advice was to prune out all the brown and administer TLC!! with a little water thrown in!! He sadly forecasts a "lingering death"! (I have organised a black tie for the impeding event) Regards, Colin.

Wow TWO YEARS LATER and I've just solved my old but lovely furniture problem. It's all gone to the Museum of Work at Bath! Even the bentwood chairs (not Thonet!) which need work, was willingly taken because they have a volunteer cabinet maker there. I'm over the moon about this so thanks to Stuart who runs the museum and who took them. But guess what, he only lives 5 doors down from me! 5 doors in 25 months that's 5 months per house, amazing how long it's taken us to get to know the neighbours! Thanks also to everyone who came up with ideas on what to do with them.

From here actually - got a lovely large vintage style filament light bulb from Amazon and popped that it. Looks lovely !

Very belated feedback on this and a thank you for all the advice. After months of just not being sure what colour to go for, I decided just to go for it and ordered one from made.com which arrived today. It was advertised as grey but actually has a teal-ish tone to it. It's not right next to the wallpaper so I think it's okay. (Looks darker in the second photo as it was about to pour with rain!)