Lincolnshire Rush-seated Corner Chair corner chair, 3 straight backpoles, with pad feet, 2 splats, double Lincs front stretcher, double rear stretcher, double side stretchers, 3 part crest rail,

WS 69 Lincolnshire Corner Rush-seated Chair

This corner chair appeared in a Lincoln auction house in 2012. I studied it closely and was convinced it was a Lincolnshire chair the like of which I had never seen before. When it came to the auction someone else wanted it more than me, as I was left being the under-bidder. It was in fair condition and really should have spent the rest of its life in a museum in the county; I think I could search for many years and never see another: anyway we can all enjoy the image of it here. I sent a copy of this picture to Dr Bernard Cotton and he replied that this was the only Lincolnshire rush seated chair he had ever seen - it just makes me feel all the more foolish for not bidding higher.

© William Sergeant 2019

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chairs x 4, with straight backpoles with tapered feet & button finials, 4 ladders, domed with downward shape, rush bars, rush-seated, Lincolnshire front stretcher, double rear stretchers, double side stretchers, turned front legs & pad feet

WS 68 Lincolnshire rush-seated chairs, probably made by Ashton/Green

These four identical chairs appeared as one lot at the auction house in Ossett, South Yorkshire. They are in excellent condition with virtually no wear to the legs or stretcher at the front: they were sold to me for very little as no one else was interested in them. This design of Lincolnshire rush-seated chair is by far the most frequent; I would say that 50% of those I see are of this design; elegant, sturdy and beautifully crafted. I didn't keep these chairs but was happy to pass them on to a keen collector of all things from Louth as they were probably made by the Ashton/Green families around Louth. He also wanted to take Mr Muggins, the cat, but he is very valuable to me as he is in charge of vermin control around the farm buildings and I would not let him go!

© William Sergeant 2019

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair, with straight backpoles with tapered feet & button finials, 4 ladders, domed with downward shape, rush bars, rush-seated, Lincolnshire front stretcher, double rear stretcher, double side stretchers, cabriole front legs & pad feet WS 66

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair WS 66 

This is one of 4 identical chairs that were put up for sale at Criterion Auctions in Wandsworth; from the picture I guessed they were from Lincolnshire but the legs were not easily made out. It was not until several weeks later when they were delivered that the full extent of what I had bought became apparent. They are excellent chairs of a good age with front legs that I had not seen before and they do not appear in Dr Bernard Cotton's The English Regional Chair.  However, after I sent some pictures to Dr Cotton, he pointed out to me that the leg design is similar to the chair which was made about 1740 depicted on the front cover of his book which represented the height of fashion at that time. Perhaps the makers of this chair were using similar design features from more upmarket Windsor chairs on their humble chairs to raise the profile of them. This design also closely resembles that found on the chairs made by the cabinetmakers and chairmakers from Philadelphia in the early 18th century. Bearing in mind that the first Pilgrim Fathers left England from Boston in Lincolnshire it is perhaps not surprising that they may share a common heritage.

WS 65 Lincolnshire rush-seated chair legs compared

The left hand leg is from the chair in the photograph above and the other is from a classic Ashton/Green Lincolnshire rush-seated chair. Both are referred to as cabriole in shape and have turnings at the top but the left hand one has been shaped into an elegant style complete with a turned pad foot.

© William Sergeant 2019

Lincolnshire comb back side chair with shaped crest rail, stylised fleur de lys splat, 4 long spindles, turned stiles, 3 ring leg turnings x 4 with vase shaped feet

WS 19 Lincolnshire comb back side chair with stylised fleur de lys splat

Unsigned chair with many features of a later Lincolnshire side chair - shaped ends to the top comb and decorative back splat make this slightly different to anything in Dr Bernard Cotton's The English Regional Chair: my guess is that it was made by G Wilson of Grantham on Manthorpe Rd.

© William Sergeant 2019

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair: straight back uprights with tapered feet & flattened top finials; 4 ladders with lower indented shaping; turned front legs of birch with pad feet morticed into the seat frame, with rushing bars; front stretcher with turnery often found in Lincolnshire, double side & rear stretchers

WS 60 Peter Tree, chair maker, discovers birch front legs

The pair of chairs which appear in this post had some wood in the front legs that I didn't recognise - one of the hall marks of a Lincolnshire rush seated chair is that they are invariably made out of ash. So the only thing to do was to pay a visit to my good friend Peter Tree: after some discussion in which we ruled out most woods we could think of, Peter found his eyeglass and on closer inspection of the grain he established that the wood in question was in fact birch! It's not at all common in vernacular chairmaking to use birch in the UK but chairs that were imported from Scandinavian countries often were. In July 2014 I was able to get Adam Bowett to look closely at this chair and he confirmed that it was in fact birch wood in the front legs.

© William Sergeant 2019

Lincolnshire rush-seated cherrywood ladder back side chair: straight back uprights with tapered feet & flattened curved stay rail with button finials; 3 pierced ladders with both upward & downward shapings; cabriole front legs with pad feet morticed into the seat frame; front stretcher with turnery often found in Lincolnshire, double side & rear stretchers

WS 47 Lincolnshire ladder back chair made of cherry wood

I haven't actually seen this chair but this picture was kindly sent to me by John Boram. It's a bit special: made out of cherry wood and with some fancy pierced ladders with a bar top. Beautifully crafted vernacular furniture.

© William Sergeant 2019

William Sergeant's talk on the earliest Windsor chairs in the world

William Sergeant showing three very early Windsor chairs: 2 in the room & 1 on the screen

William Sergeant gave a talk to the Louth Antiquarians' & Naturalists' Society at the Conoco Rooms above Louth Library on Tuesday 8 October 2019 from 7.30 pm. about the earliest Windsor chairs in Lincolnshire & the world

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back armchair: straight back uprights with tapered feet & flattened top finials; 5 ladders with lower indented shaping; turned front cabriole legs with pad feet morticed into the seat frame; front stretcher with turnery often found in Lincolnshire, double side & rear stretchers

WS 67 Lincolnshire rush-seated armchair

From the collection of John Boram and with permission to reproduce its image here. A very fine carver with some fruit wood in its construction.

Clissett chair by John Warrender with board seat, 4 spindles within back bars, curved back uprights, shaped front rail, ring-turned front legs (which are slightly higher than the seat)

WS 154 Clissett chair by John Warrender

WS 155 John Warrender I*W stamp

These chairs are easily recognisable as Philip Clissett and members of his family made them for many years in the nineteenth century in and around Herefordshire. I came across a set of three while at the Newark Antique fair and was struck by their excellent condition. I really had no intention of buying them until I noticed some impressed initials at the top of the back legs; I pointed them out to the dealer but he was not in the slightest bit bothered. The letters were quite clear: I*W but they meant nothing to me so I sent an email to Terry Rowell who runs the Philip Clissett website. A short while later he contacted me to say the initial stood for John Warrender, a chairmaker from Worcestershire who was an uncle of Philip Clissett's, and the signed chairs were uncommon. The price was negotiated and I was happy to leave the fair with something, as I had not come across a single chair that could be associated with Lincolnshire.

Lower picture shows the impressed initials of John Warrender on the top of the back leg of chair No 154. He lived and worked in the village of Bransford, Worecesterchire . There is really no need for me to print anything else here but recommend you to visit Terry Rowell's  excellent Philip Clissett website website. You will find everything you need to know about him and his family.

© William Sergeant 2019

Rush-seated Dales chair with 3 spindles between back bars, straight back poles and front legs (which are slightly higher than the seat), regional turnery device on front stretcher, double side stretchers

WS 156 Rush-seated Dales chair

This chair came with the Clissett type chairs so in effect I got four chairs for the price of three. I recognised it as what Cotton describes in his book as a "Dales" chair from the Lancashire/Cumbria region. There were several features that struck me about this chair as it was probably the first time that I had handled one of these chairs. I was initial surprised how heavy it was along with being very well made. It is all ash construction with its original rush seat that had been painted a dark brown colour.

The two horizontal rails securing the upright turned back spindles are not turned but flattened and rectangular in section. You will notice that the front legs terminate just above the seat level - a feature that I never associate with the Lincolnshire rush seated chairs.

For similar chairs, see Dr B D Cotton The English Regional Chair (1990) NW 30, NW 31 and NW 32, p.330.

© William Sergeant 2019

Thames Valley side chair, star splat, 6 long spindles, ribbon stiles, with shaped crest rail, bell seat, incised line on seat, ring & cove front legs with 1 lower ring, plain back legs, H stretcher,

WS 197 Thames Valley side chair

I happened across a pair of these side chairs at the Stamford Antique centre and could not resist the temptation of purchasing them, even though I knew that they were not of Lincolnshire origin. I had seen a picture of this type of chair in Dr B D Cotton's The English Regional Chair, figure TV27 p.49, but it was the first time I had been able to handle one. To the casual observer, every component beneath the seat could easily be attributed to a local chair whereas everything above is quite different. The seat viewed from above is long front to back and narrow with an incised mark all around the edge of the upper surface; this is almost opposite to the wide and short front to back that I would expect on a Lincolnshire chair while the incised mark just never occurs on a Lincolnshire side chair.

The back support is more elegant and extra work would have been required to make it - the outside spindles are square tapered with tenons top and bottom for joining. The back comb is well shaped with a waving crest; in section it is heavily chamfered to almost a point at the top down to a wide base to allow for the connecting tenons from the outside supports. Every component is of ash wood, probably produced around 1800 or a little earlier and likely to have been made in the area to the west of London along the Thames Valley.

© William Sergeant 2019

Glasgow pattern joined armchair with curved top rail, central shaped cross splat, scrolled arms, shaped underarms fixed into side rails, dyked board seat, stretchers x 4, inner & rear tapered legs

WS 144 Scottish joined armchair, Glasgow pattern 

If you thought this site was going to entirely devoted to Lincolnshire chairs then you may be disappointed - or perhaps pleasantly surprised.  This chair was most probably made north of Glasgow & Edinburgh, in lowland Scotland.

How do I know that, I hear you say? Well, just look at the wood of the broad curved top rail, the centrally placed cross splat (with both upward and downward shaping) and the right hand curved back upright are made out of - they contain dark heart wood and light yellow sapwood.   Only one wood like that: Laburnum! There was a strong and well-recorded tradition of the use of Cytisus alpinus (also Laburnum alpinum) from the late 1700s in lowland Perthshire. Also the seat is counter sunk into the rails - known as a dyked seat - and you can just make out the 45° degree angle the corner of the seat board is cut at the top of the legs tapered on the inner and rear faces; both are Scottish traditions.  The scrolled arms and curved underarm supports, fitted to the side seat rails are made from elm and the seat boards from oak. Front and rear stretchers are set higher than those at the sides.

For further examples of these Glasgow pattern chairs, see Dr B D Cotton Scottish Vernacular Furniture (Thames & Hudson 2008) pp.178-188.

I happened across this wonderful piece of vernacular furniture at the Stamford Antique centre described as a yew wood country chair.

© William Sergeant 2019

Unstamped hoop back Lincolnshire Windsor side chair with 6 long spindles, straight sided seat, ball turned front legs with vase shaped feet, plain back legs, H stretcher

WS 146 Unstamped hoop back Lincolnshire Windsor side chair

This chair was one of several Lincs side chairs that I was lucky enough to acquire out of a farmhouse near Boston. They had been there for almost 40 years and were originally brought from a dealer in Bourne. Please take a moment to study the ball turnings with vase feet on the front legs; not at all typical for a Lincolnshire side chair. However, for those of you who study Dr B D Cotton’s The English Regional Chair (1990) you may be familiar with them as there are several the same in it . Just take a moment to glance at NE 117 p.136, NE 97 p.132, and NE 71 p.127. Then turn your attention to NE 147 p.140 , NE 155 p.142 and NE 116 p.135. All remarkably like the turnings above but none with a makers name on them - so I wonder which workshop they came out of? Until one is found with a maker's stamp on it, I am open to suggestions; my money was once on the brothers George and Edward Akrill from Grantham, but there may now be other indications as discussed at No 162. This chair is entirely compatible with other Grantham side chairs having been made from ash except for the seat which Adam Bowett pointed out to me is made out of beech.

© William Sergeant 2019

Unstamped comb back Lincolnshire Windsor side chair with curved crest rail, turned stiles, 6 long spindles, straight sided seat, ball turned front legs with vase shaped feet, plain back legs, H stretcher

WS 162 comb back Lincolnshire Windsor side chair 

One of a set of three identical comb back side chairs. The design of these chairs fits exactly the tradition of Lincolnshire side chairs though it is without any identifying marks. The plain back legs and top comb uniting the back supports is emblematic. I don't know the name of the maker but these front legs are so distinctive and the chair No 146 must have come from the same workshop. Originally offered for sale at Bateman's auction house in Stamford, Lincolnshire in early 2015; constructed with an elm seat and back comb, the rest is mainly ash but like No 146 there is some use of beech.
. 

Intriguingly , written on the underside of the seat in flowing Victorian hand of pencil it says "Mrs Waldin - Easton". Now the hamlet of Easton is mentioned in White's Directory of Lincolnshire in 1872 as containing 188 souls along with a "dame" school supported by Lady Georgiana Cholmeley. The schoolmistress is called Hannah Walton. She appears in the 1871 census living at Newton Lodge, Easton, occupation schoolmistress. If you are wondering where this village is: it's half way between Grantham and Stamford.

Who made chairs in Stamford between 1844 and his death in 1875? James Taylor (1815-1875) later assisted by his two sons, William Taylor junior (1838-1902) and James Waite Taylor (1841- 1893).  Who was James Taylor? Son of John Taylor (1782- aft. 1841), grandson of Roger (1763-1801) and Sophia Taylor (1761-1841), nephew of William Taylor (1784-1864), all Windsor chair makers of Grantham.

In my comments on No 146 I draw attention to its similarity to six chairs in Dr Cotton's book. They all have the same ball turnings and vase feet as the side chair in this post. The last of the six, NE 116 p.135, as Dr Cotton observes, also has turned outer uprights (or stiles) very similar to the Taylor stamped chair at NE 109 p.134, a stamped chair identical to which appears on this site as No 18.  I suspect that the Taylor family may be the key to working out the most likely makers of these ball-turned chairs.

© William Sergeant 2015 with additional material by Julian Parker 2019

Squared back East Anglian Windsor side chair with 7 staggered long spindles, framed back, bell seat, single ring leg turnings x 4, H stretcher with darts

WS 142 squared back East Anglian Windsor side chair 

This is the side chair that goes with No 143. If you study the Mendlesham chairs in Dr B D Cotton’s The English Regional Chair (1990) there is only a single side chair shown which makes this worthy of inclusion here just on that fact alone.

Many thanks to Tony and Jan from Suffolk for allowing me to publish these pictures here.

© William Sergeant 2019

Squared back East Anglian Windsor armchair with 7 staggered long spindles, shaped underarms fixed to back frame and shaped underarm supports, bell seat, single ring leg turnings x 4, H stretcher with darts

WS 143 Squared back East Anglian Windsor armchair

There is absolutely nothing about this chair to associate it with Lincolnshire but it is just such an elegant chair that it deserves a wider audience.  I had seen it briefly before and asked its owner to bring it along to my Chair Study day on 22 September 2014.

The most outstanding feature, which is not immediately obvious from this picture, are the staggered back spindles; if you look where they meet the seat you see they are not in line. The next important item to note is that the upper half could well have been made by a cabinet maker and the lower half by a turner. The overall appearance is similar to the Mendlesham chairs that appear in Dr B D Cotton’s The English Regional Chair (1990) pp.246-256. However there are some notable subtle differences - every one in Cotton's book has double top bars and none of the vertical back spindles reach all the way down to the seat board whereas this chair has a single top bar and the vertical spindles are let into the seat. One overiding feature tends to unite the Mendlesham chairs: it is the incise mark on the legs to denote where the stretchers are to be drilled and let in - those marks appear on this chair and No 142.

© William Sergeant 2019

18th century likely Lincolnshire comb back Windsor armchair, with curved grooved cresting rail, 8 long spindles with two old iron replacements, 2 x 3 underarm spindles, bladed underarm supports, turned legs thinner in the middle, through-morticed and wedged into the seat

18th century likely Lincolnshire comb back

This chair recently appeared at auction in Essex.  Its most recent home was in Great Canfield and it was the auctioneer's understanding that it was the previous owner's favourite chair, (acquired in all likelihood at auction many years ago) in which she always sat.

For an article on the earliest Windsor chair maker yet recorded in the world, please click on this link.  Compare to No 200, No 205 and No 209.

© Julian Parker 2019

Medium bow back East Anglian Windsor armchair, with wheat sheaf splat, 2 x 3 long spindles, 2 x 3 short spindles, crook underarm supports, top egg & lower egg & long reel leg turnings, H stretcher with barrels

WS 141 An East Anglian, possibly Suffolk, Windsor armchair

The highlight of the Chair Study day in September 2014 was without question the arrival of this chair which was brought along by an avid chair collector from the Midlands. What a wonderfully crafted elegant chair! It bears no resemblance to a Lincolnshire chair but is remarkably like an oft-overlooked chair on p.256 of Dr B D Cotton’s The English Regional Chair (1990).

If you read my short summary as to what makes a Lincolnshire chair, you will see that this chair fails on several points; firstly it does not have plain back legs, secondly the splat is let into the front of the bow rather than through it, thirdly the joint where the back bow meets the arm bow has a shoulder that sits on the armbow and fourthly the turnery design bears no relationship to any other Lincs chair. However the most significant feature for me is that this chair is just too well made to have come out of Lincolnshire. Just look at those stretchers that unite the legs: they have a delicately turned barrel in the middle of each one with an incise mark in the middle of each - what lovely detail!

Now compare this chair with Figure EA165 in Cotton's book:

© Dr B D Cotton The English Regional Chair 1990

 of which he writes: "Armchair. Elm seat and splat, ash hoop and sticks, fruitwood legs and stretchers. Attributed to East Anglia. Typical Windsor chair configuration [...] The wheatsheaf splat is similar to those employed in certain of the Mendlesham group chairs. The manufacturing detail in the chair indicates a close relationship with the Mendlesham area chairs, and it may be that this style of chair formed part of the repertoire of this generic chair group."

For the chair pictured above all of the back support is the same. The design of the splat is similar to those sometimes found on Mendlesham chairs. However the detail that is most significant, but may be difficult to see in the picture above is that each leg has an incise mark to denote where the hole needs to be drilled to let in the cross stretcher: this is so common and a defining feature of Mendlesham chairs. Could it be that one of the workshops that Cotton identified making Mendlesham chairs was making these chairs as well and using details common to both?  It should be noted that the leg turnings, an egg at the top and an egg and long reel at the bottom, differ from Figure EA165.

© William Sergeant 2019

Unstamped medium bow back Lincolnshire Windsor armchair, crook underarm supports, 6 long spindles, 2 x 4 underarm spindles, ring and cove front leg turnings with single lower ring & plain back legs, crinoline stretcher

WS 137 Lincolnshire Windsor bow back armchair

Well crafted and full of understated elegance - a typical early nineteenth century Lincolnshire windsor chair - but we do not know who made it. The outstanding feature of this chair is the quatrefoil motif in the splat; they are rarely seen. The seat and most of the components are made from ash, the splat probably from fruitwood. However the two steam bent bows are made from a wood that I am not familiar with and could even have been constructed from hazel. This chair is in the collection of Brian Gray.

I have made the bold statement that this is a Lincolnshire Windsor chair, even though it does not have a makers stamp on it to verify where it was made. I have been asked many times how I know if a chair was made in Lincolnshire and after giving some talks to groups of people this year my thoughts have focused on answering that question. The first reason I am so confident I am able to recognise them is that I have handled a significant number of signed chairs and a pattern emerges that is common to all Lincolnshire chairs. Always remember that the chairmaker has left his finger prints over every component, whether on purpose or not (these could be explicit or implicit features).

The first most obvious feature that can be spotted at some distance is the design of the legs, namely a ring and cove on the front legs (later to become just two rings) and plain back legs, tapered towards both ends. The lack of decoration on the back legs just typifies the frugal attitude these makers had to the manufacture of their chairs to remain competitive with other chairmakers. On the front leg the ring design tends to be small whereas the cove is flat and elongated (made with a gouge chisel rather than a nail chisel).

The next pointer I look for is the seat - I reckon that at least 85% of signed Lincolnshire chairs have seats made from the ash tree (the other 15% are made from elm). The early makers used flaired seats to get the front legs further apart and I have yet to see a Lincolnshire chair with the legs let right through seat (a common practice on Thames Valley chairs).

The design of the back splat holds no interest to me at all - I have not come across any association of the fretted design with the maker. However, it appears to me that all the Lincolnshire makers made spindle backed chairs with no splat but where there is a splat it is let through the back bow, not let into the front of the bow that is so very common on the southern chairs. I have yet to see a Lincolnshire chair with a roundel or cartwheel motif on the splat though I believe ones may exist.

Chairs from other regions usually have a scribe mark on the backbow and sometimes around the edge of the seat; I would not expect to see such decoration on a Lincolnshire chair - remember the word to describe these chairs is frugal with no unnecessary decoration.

Finally the most telling design feature that distinguishes East Midlands chairs from their southern counterparts is the joint where the backbow meets the arm bow: Lincolnshire makers tapered the back bow like the sharpening of a pencil whereas the Thames Valley makers seemed invariably to have been taught to cut a square shoulder which sits on the arm bow  Its always the first point that catches my eye whenever I come across a new chair to inspect.

A fuller discussion of what distinguishes a Lincolnshire chair from a Nottinghamshire chair or a Thames Valley one, written several years after I made these observations, may be found here.

© William Sergeant 2014 & 2019

The Elusive Turnpin Chair - A Lincolnshire rush-seated chair by any other name would smell as sweet

William Sergeant  long ago remarked to me that no one could confidently identify a ‘pin’ chair, also known as a ‘turn-pin’ chair. These chairs and their makers are something of a late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century mystery. An idle search in the British Newspaper Archive during some Windsor chair research turned up Nicholas Allen of Boston, chair and spinning- wheel maker, who placed two advertisements for pin chair-makers in the Stamford Mercury on 6 August 1790 and 10 June 1803. Could the archive shed further light on pin or turn-pin chairs and their makers?  The resulting research was published in the Journal of the Regional Furniture Society.

The most important and illuminating advertisement read:

26 June 1812 Stamford Mercury: High-street, Boston. Matthew Bacon for William White deceased. To Chair-makers, Cabinet-makers, Wheelwrights, &c. To be SOLD by AUCTION By MATTHEW BACON, On Friday the 3d day of July 1812, on the premises of the late WILLIAM WHITE, Chair-maker, HIGH-STREET, BOSTON; ALL the STOCK in TRADE; consisting of upwards of 400 ash poles, 2,250 feet of ash, elm, and wainscot, 50 camp poles, 60 bed sides and ends, a quantity of pin chairs, a large quantity of stuff ready turned, a quantity of mats and rushes, 2 benches, blocks, turning-frame, tools &c. &c. N.B. The wood being all dry, is well worth the attention of the public. Credit will be given for all bargains above forty shillings, on approved security, to January the 20th, 1813.

That, together with the rest of my research, may be found here.

© Julian Parker 2019

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair: straight back uprights with tapered feet & flattened top finials; 4 ladders with lower indented shaping; turned front legs with pad feet morticed into the seat frame, with rushing bars; front stretcher with turnery often found in Lincolnshire, double side & rear stretchers

WS 54 Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair

There is a similarity in construction marks to WS 87, WS 70, WS 52 and WS 37.

©William Sergeant 2019

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair: straight back uprights with tapered feet & flattened top finials; 4 ladders with lower indented shaping; turned tapered front legs lower ring morticed into the seat frame, with rushing bars; front stretcher with turnery not from Lincolnshire, double side & rear stretchers

WS 52 Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair

I bought this one at the auction house in Market Harborough: take a good look and you will see that the front stretcher doesn't look right. There was other rush seated chairs at the same auction consigned from the same vendor with the same front stretcher but not from Lincolnshire. I think this chair had its original stretcher broken and one was robbed off the other chairs. There is a similarity in construction marks to WS 87, WS 70, WS 54 and WS 37.

©William Sergeant 2019

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair, straight back uprights with tapering feet terminating in a plain narrow stay rail with 4 plain domed ladders, straight front legs with reduced pad feet morticed into the seat frame, front stretcher with turnery often found in Lincolnshire, double rear and side stretchers

WS 37 Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair

Lincolnshire rush seated chairs are usually made to the most utilitarian design, just one step up from a stool but take a close look at these front legs: the person who turned them was skilled in design and manufacture; the rings, coves and quirks are crisply executed with the pad feet expertly made. Local vernacular furniture with more than a hint of sophistication.

There is similarity in the construction marks on this chair to WS 87, WS 70, WS 54 and WS 52.

©William Sergeant 2019

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back rocking side chair, straight back uprights with tapering feet flattened top finials; 4 ladders (1 missing) with lower indented shaping; turned front legs with pad feet morticed into the seat frame, with rushing bars; front stretcher with turnery found in Lincolnshire, double side & rear stretchers

WS 42 Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back rocking chair

WS 43 detail of front stretcher of Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back rocking chair

Of surprisingly small proportions but not a child's chair, in excellent condition except that it's missing the lowest ladder (there should be 4 not 3 as shown) with original rushing and seat edge trims. The front stretcher is like no other I have seen but a cracking little bit of rural Lincolnshire furniture none the less.  The front stretcher turning may also be seen on WS 70.

©William Sergeant 2019

Bar top Lincolnshire rush-seated side chair, straight back uprights with tapering feet terminating in a plain narrow stay rail with 4 plain domed ladders, straight front legs with reduced pad feet morticed into the seat frame, front stretcher with turnery often found in Lincolnshire, double rear and side stretchers

WS 70 Bar top Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair

Another chair from the collection of John Boden, in lovely condition and very similar to chair NE211 on p.158 of Dr B D Cotton's The English Regional Chair (1990). One of a dining set of 4 side chairs and 2 carvers. The front stretcher is closer in design to chair WS 42 than any of the other Lincolnshire chairs.  There is a similarity in construction marks to WS 87, WS 54, WS 52 and WS 37.

©William Sergeant 2019

Bar top Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair, straight back uprights with decorative shaped stay rail with lower indented design, 4 ladders, same lower indent, straight front legs with reduced pad feet morticed into the seat frame, front stretcher with turnery often found in Lincolnshire, double rear and side stretchers

WS 87 Bar top Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back side chair

This model of chair was recorded by Dr B D Cotton on p.157 of The English Regional Chair (1990): they are not at all common and I was so pleased to find this example at the Newark Antiques Fair. It's in good condition with recent professional re-rushing but lacking its seat edge strips.

One of the benefits of collecting these Lincolnshire chairs is that after gathering a number together it is possible to see similarities emerging; there are are little construction marks that are only apparent on very close inspection and they appear on this chair along with numbers WS 54, WS 52, WS 37 and WS 70 . There is good evidence that they came out of the same workshop.

© William Sergeant 2019

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

William Taylor, Grantham medium bow back Lincolnshire Windsor armchair, with 3-piercing fleur de lys above teardrop piercing, single pierced lower teardrop, bell seat, 6 long spindles, 8 short, turned underarm, ring & cove front leg turning, plain back legs, H stretcher with darts

On 25 June 1813 an intriguing advertisement appeared in the Lincolnshire, Rutland and Stamford Mercury:

© British Library Board

"WILLIAM TAYLOR, the Original Windsor Chair-maker, No.11, WESTGATE, GRANTHAM returns thanks for the very liberal encouragement he has for several years experienced at Stow Green Fair, and informs his friends and the public in general, he will have an assortment of Yew and other Windsor Chairs at the above fair, on the 2d and 3d of July, when orders will be thankfully received. Observe, none are his make but those marked "Taylor's, Grantham," on the seat. Turning executed to order, all sorts of spinning wheels made and repaired, screws cut for benches, cheese and other presses, on the shortest notice."

This is the the very first indication of how a Grantham chair maker was able to show his chairs to the public. 

WS 167 Taylors Grantham 

When I first read this I assumed William Taylor was referring to the Stow village which is about 10 miles north of Lincoln but on further investigation I discovered a fascinating event much closer to Grantham. 

The village of Stow no longer exists but is marked by a plaque in a corner of a field about  one mile south of Threekingham, 8 miles south of Sleaford and ten miles east of Grantham. In the 18th & 19th centuries the grass area around Stow was turned into a small town as it had a licence for a annual market which was granted in the 13th century. The picture above shows part of the grass field (which has a preservation order on it) where this huge fair was held. On the sky line is the spire of Threekingham church . The chair in the picture is signed TAYLORS GRANTHAM and there is the intriguing possibility that this very chair was taken to this very spot over 200 years ago to be sold by William Taylor. Ponder this thought as well: would he have seen Thomas Marsh of Sleaford and Richard Hubbard of Grantham at the fair trying to sell their chairs as well? For more information on this fair please click on the following link. 

WS 167 Taylors Grantham with 2 friends, WS 123 T Simpson, Boston on the right and WS 29 Marsh of Sleaford on the left

William Taylor was baptised in Grantham in 1785. His father was Roger Taylor and it was his father who placed an advert in the Stamford Mercury dated 9 July 1800 wanting a journeyman Windsor chair maker. So William, the second son, was born into a family of chairmakers. It's slightly surprising that he then was apprenticed to a joiner in 1799 , when he was 14. His father Roger was buried in Grantham in 1801 but his wife Sophia continued to run the chairmaking business, advertising for journeymen and apprentices. 

The advertisement says that he had been selling Windsor chairs for several years prior to 1813, when William would have been 28 years old; however it's not clear if he was running his parents business. His claim of being the Original Windsor chairmaker (in the area) is of interest. He may well be using the fact that his father's business was probably the first to introduce Windsor chairmaking to Grantham.

Finally, William warns the public that only chairs marked with his name, TAYLOR'S , are made by him and implies that someone else is trying to sell very similar chairs on the back of his reputation. Well, I think I know who was trying to do this, but that will be another posting on this site.

© William Sergeant 2019