Yealmpton, Devon, painted hoop back side chair, bell seat, 7 long spindles, ring & cove leg turnings, front and back with 1 lower ring, H stretcher with dart turning

WS 150 Yealmpton side chair

I met with Brian Gray and Stephen Vogt to look closely at the features of this chair. Between us we have over many years viewed countless auctions and scoured many antique shops in search of Lincolnshire chairs in the county and we all agreed that we had not seen anything remotely like this one before. Indeed we all concurred that the use of a draw knife to make the back spindles and the outside stretchers was enough to definitely say that this was not a product of Lincolnshire.

When I got back home I spoke to Bill Cotton, who had seen the same photos as well, he immediately pointed out the same decoration on p.272 of his book The English Regional Chair (1990). He went on to say that there was only one place that had the tradition of using yellow ochre (among other colours) and that of course was in Yealmpton in Devon. The chair in plate 37 is now in the Geffrye Museum. He also went on to say that there exists a three-seater Windsor settee in existence with identical decoration and that is published and recorded in the book "American Painted Furniture" by Dean A Fales. The provenance of this settee can be traced back to an antique shop in Stow in the Wold. Bill Cotton is convinced the settee and the two side chairs were made by the same maker in Yealmpton. He also explained the spindles being made with a draw knife: the makers were carpenters and coopers and were quite comfortable with the technique. The settee is now housed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It is such an extraordinary creation that I have included a picture of it below.

Three-seater Windsor settee, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, USA

© William Sergeant 2014 & 2019