Lincolnshire Windsor Grecian scroll back bar back side chair stamped SHIRLEY WS 72 and 71

Lincolnshire Windsor Grecian scroll back bar back side chair stamped SHIRLEY WS 71

Lincolnshire Windsor Grecian scroll back bar back side chair stamped SHIRLEY WS 72 

Stamped by the maker William Shirley of Caistor, this bar back simple kitchen chair has distinctive leg turnings. There is a simple line drawing of a similar side chair in John Shadford's notebook (the 10th image down this webpage) with the word 'Grecian' and the price 2/6 written beneath.  This type of chair is more commonly described as a 'scroll back'. From a private collection.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

Unusual Lincolnshire scroll back Windsor armchair stamped Taylor, bar back, pierced cross rail, turned lower rail, straight seat sides, ring & cove front leg turnings with lower ring, plain back, H stretcher, shaped underarms, sawn and scrolled back uprights WS 82

Unusual Lincolnshire scroll back Windsor armchair stamped Taylor, bar back, pierced cross rail, turned lower rail, straight seat sides, ring & cove front leg turnings with lower ring, plain back, H stretcher, shaped underarms, sawn and scrolled back uprights WS 82

Windsor armchair signed TAYLOR GRANTHAM from the fine collection of Brian Gray. This an enigma as it has many features that you would not associate with an East Midlands chair. This is the only chair of this pattern that has ever been recorded and is unusual for two reasons. Firstly, it has very few turned components: more like a chair that a cabinet maker would produce, and secondly the design is what I would expect to be produced in the Thames Valley region. It demonstrates that there are probably other design of chairs that were produced by the Lincolnshire chair makers and as yet undiscovered and unrecorded.

© William Sergeant 2015 and 2019

Scroll back bar back Windsor armchair, possibly Northamptonshire, with bell shaped seat, curved stay rail, cross rail with split multiple bobbin turning, turned underarm supports, 3 ring front and plain back legs with vase feet, H stretcher

Scroll back bar back Windsor armchair, possibly Northamptonshire WS 125

I try ever so hard to restrict my chair collecting to chairs that have a Lincolnshire connection but I could not resist purchasing this one a while ago from the Newark Antique fair. Let me explain: there are references in Dr B D Cotton's The English Regional Chair (1990)  and elsewhere of stamped chairs by John March of Geddington and John Powell of Northampton.  James Drake has let me have photos of his signed chairs. They all have features that could originate from Thames Valley and some features from Lincolnshire but one design element that keeps occurring is the split turning applied to the lower back bar. When Bill Cotton called in three years ago I got him to cast his eye over this chair and he reinforced my opinion that this chair could well be attributed to one of the Northants makers.

© William Sergeant 2020

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