Lincolnshire high back bow back Windsor armchair with 5-piercing fleur de lys upper splat with lower diamond, double pierced lower splat, 6 long spindles, 8 short, no underarms, straight seat sides, ring and cove front leg turnings with1 lower ring x 4, crinoline stretcher WS 153 & WS 152

Lincolnshire high back bow back Windsor armchair with 5-piercing fleur de lys upper splat with lower diamond, double pierced lower splat WS 153

Lincolnshire high back bow back Windsor armchair with 5-piercing fleur de lys upper splat with lower diamond, double pierced lower splat WS 153b

Another Windsor chair of little value, mainly due to the huge fracture in the armbow (which can not be seen in these pictures) and the missing underarm supports. However, it is not without some interesting points even though the maker did not stamp it. The seat is made from ash while the rest of the chair is made from yew wood. Every feature would suggest a Grantham maker but without the underarm supports for some design clues it is difficult to work out who made this chair. However, one of the benefits of keeping pictures of stamped chairs is that they make a hugely important reference library.

If you have read my few lines under picture WS 131 you will have noted that I normally take no notice of the design of the cut out fret work on back splats. However the only exception to that rule is a tiny feature that appears on several AMOS stamped chairs. Compare this back splat to the signed chair in picture WS 132 and I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.

© William Sergeant 2015 and 2020.

Lincolnshire bow back spindle back Windsor armchair stamped T SIMPSON BOSTON with 8 long spindles 6 short, crook underarm support, bell shaped seat with fantail and two angled spindles, ring and cove leg turnings with 1 lower ring x 4 with crinoline stretcher WS 130

Lincolnshire bow back spindle back Windsor armchair stamped T SIMPSON BOSTON with 8 long spindles 6 short, crook underarm support, bell shaped seat with fantail and two angled spindles, ring and cove leg turnings with 1 lower ring x 4 with crinoline stretcher WS 130

There are several outstanding features that make a Lincolnshire chair easily recognisable from a Thames Valley chair, one of which is that a Lincolnshire chair never has two spindles angled upwards from a fantail from the back of the seat. Well this chair completely disproves the rule!

Thank you to Mitch Mitchell for allowing me to record his chair here. I was allowed to make a brief inspection of this chair before photographing it and I am completely satisfied that it was made in Boston; the legs, spindles, bows and seat are exactly as you would expect so I have no doubt that it was made in the county. A further very rare feature in a Lincolnshire chair is the scribe line round the back bow: this feature is common in Nottinghamshire but almost never found in Lincolnshire.

That just leaves the extra spindles for a back support : well, perhaps this one was made as an experiment to see what was the extra expense and whether or not it made the chair more stable. It's certainly the only armchair that I have ever seen from the East Midlands with this configuration. If you look at the side chair in WS 118 you will see something similar but that chair was made in Nottinghamshire. Perhaps journeymen who had experience in Thames Valley workshops made both chairs.

© William Sergeant 2020

Nottinghamshire bow back Windsor side chair stamped Nicholson Rockley with 6 long spindles, bell-shaped seat with fantail and 2 spindles at an angle, with ring and cove leg turnings with 1 lower ring x 4 WS 118

Nottinghamshire bow back Windsor side chair stamped Nicholson Rockley with 6 long spindles, bell-shaped seat with fantail and 2 spindles at an angle, with ring and cove leg turnings with 1 lower ring x 4 WS 118

The wonderful thing about collecting chairs is finding something special! I remember having a conversation with a dealer about memorizing the designs of chairs in Dr B D Cotton's The English Regional Chair (1990) and then searching for something out of the ordinary.  He was very dismissive and likened me to a train spotter for ticking off the pictures. He completely missed the point: the fun of the search! Anyway, I know this is not a Lincolnshire chair but its very existence is worth recording here because if you look in Cotton's book there are many pictures of the superb Windsor chairs that were made in Rockley, in Nottinghamshire, but there is no mention or picture of a side chair. They were thought not to exist. Well feast your eyes on this: the ironic thing is that this chair spent several years in an antique shop in Newark and I must have walked past it many times. There was nothing about it to suggest to me that it was a local chair and I never even stopped to inspect it. Side chairs with a fantail seat and 2 angled spindles joined into the hoop are a standard design in the Thames Valley and, as far as I am aware, this is the only East Midlands side chair featuring this design and construction method. 

Only when a fellow collector told me that it was stamped with the maker's name did I inspect it closely. 

Nottinghamshire bow back Windsor side chair stamped Nicholson Rockley  WS 117

Imagine my surprise when I saw Nicholson Rockley. Because it had been unsold for so long I think the shop owner was really pleased to let me have it at a very much reduced rate. The lesson for me and anyone else reading this is simple: never ever walk past a chair without inspecting it thoroughly for signs of who made it.

PS there is one other armchair from Lincolnshire recorded with a fantail and 2 angled spindles which will be posted tomorrow (update: now to be found here).

© William Sergeant 2020

Lincolnshire hoop back side chair stamped WILSON GRANTHAM with 3 x quatrefoil pierced splat, 6 long spindles, straight seat sides, 4 x ring and cove leg turnings with lower ring, crinoline stretcher, WS 184

Lincolnshire hoop back side chair stamped WILSON GRANTHAM with 3 x quatrefoil pierced splat, 6 long spindles, straight seat sides, 4 x ring and cove leg turnings with lower ring, crinoline stretcher, WS 184

Vernacular furniture is sometimes  referred to, in a slightly disparaging way, as 'country furniture' which carries with it the implication that is not of such good quality or design. When I find chairs like this one pictured above, made probably 200 years ago, I marvel at the superb quality of craftsmanship of these Lincolnshire county makers. My research has been unable to reveal who actually made this chair, whether it was John Wilson himself or a journeyman that was employed in his workshop, but the quality of balanced design along with beautifully executed turnery to the legs just shows what excellent work was being produced.

I had come across this maker at least ten years ago while doing research in to the Grantham chairmakers but he was described as a chairmaker of Little Gonerby and it was unclear as to exactly what type of chairs he was making.  So I was delighted when an auctioneer in the south of the county contacted me to say that a set of 4 side chairs with the stamp of WILSON GRANTHAM had been consigned to his sale. I accordingly secured the chairs as they make a valuable contribution to my museum as well as a graceful addition to my front room.

The seats of all the chairs are made from ash wood while all other components are of yew. I get the impression that the turners liked to use yew as its incredibily tight grain means that wonderful detail can shown in their execution of the leg turnings. That's why the best chairs were made from yew and today command the highest prices.

© William Sergeant 2020

Leicestershire curved comb back Windsor armchair by William Rowe of Hallaton, with 14 long spindles, 8 short, crook underarms, bell shaped seat, ring and cove leg turnings, front and back, H stretcher with barrels

WS 170 Leicestershire curved comb back Windsor armchair by William Rowe of Hallaton

It is immediately obvious that whoever made this chair was well versed in his trade and could be considered to be a professional chairmaker. While I have not seen another chair quite like this one there are many pointers to where the maker learnt his trade. For instance, the bell shaped seat (in plan view) is just typical of what I would expect from a Lincolnshire maker as are the rings and cove decoration to the front legs. The seat appears to be made from ash and the rest of the chair from yew wood with spindles for back support - all point to an association to early Lincolnshire chairmakers circa 1800 - 1820.

Pictured below is the undercarriage of the chair.  Some features that point to a different influence of manufacture: one design element that appears and which I have never seen on a Lincolnshire chair is the elegant barrel-shaped lozenges on each of the three stretchers. Identical stretchers may be found on this East Anglian chair. The double ring design at the bottom of the legs is found on Mendlesham chairs and others associated with East Anglia.   - I have never seen these on a signed Lincolnshire chair. 

The back spindles being united with a top comb rail may lead some to think that this is a Lincolnshire trait, which is right as a design feature, but it would be wrong by the date, as these did not appear on early chairs but seem to become fashionable after 1835. The number of spindles in the back are 14 long and 8 short which would appear to be excessively high in total and would add nothing extra to its structural integrity; a typical example would be this chair by Amos that has 9 long and 8 short. The size and shape of the top comb is unique as far as I know as are the two outside long back spindles with their beautifully crafted lengths of different diameters. The fact that the two frontmost short spindles have been let through and wedged into the armbow points to superior craftsmanship and has only rarely been recorded before by me.  The final point to note is that the back spindles holes have been drilled right through the seat; the only Lincolnshire chairs that have this feature are those probably made by Joseph Newton of Fenton which are much earlier, dating from 1725 to 1750.  There are Nottinghamshire chairs recorded with this feature from the Retford and Rockley workshops, particularly associated with William Wheatland.

Finally I come to the name stamp - and I find this a real conundrum: most makers who their own name stamps used them with large letters either on the upper surface of the seat or on a side edge; these were put there with the expressed purpose of advertising their wares. The impressed mark of W Rowe is more typical of a retailer but I do not think this applies in this case. It could be easily explained by the fact that the name stamp is the same one used by Mr William Rowe to stamp his own tools in his chest to identify his possessions.

Research into this maker only shows he was recorded working in Hallaton in Leicestershire in the early 1840's. There is a John Rowe, chair turner in Pigot's 1835 Directory in Hallaton. William Rowe appears as chair maker in the 1841 Pigot's Directory. There are 2 William Rowes in the 1841 Poll Book for the Hundred of Gartree which included Hallaton. There are 3 William Rowes in the 1841 census in Hallaton, one a shoemaker aged 55, one a grazier aged 80 and one aged 65 'of independent means'.

He may well have had a business employing several journeymen, as did the Lincolnshire chairmakers, and one of them could have made this chair after learning his trade as an apprentice somewhere in East Anglia and incorporating the design features common to that area. Alternatively, it may be found after more research that it was Mr Rowe who originally came from EA and learnt his trade there. It may be possible to unravel this dichotomy with time and research in the archives.

Below is a picture of the edge of the seat of this chair, clearly showing the impressed name of W ROWE. There are two impressions on this side, one of which is upside down; there is one on the other edge the right way up. It is more like a tool stamp - unlike the larger ones that the Lincolnshire chairmakers used. To date this is the only stamped chair that has been recorded by this maker.

W Rowe stamp

This chair appears at NE 114 on page 135 of Dr B D Cotton's The English Regional Chair (1990).  I did not take these pictures as this chair has been in the USA for the last 40 years. Some time ago while I was talking chairs with Bill Cotton, I expressed a desire to see this chair. That's when Bill told me that it had been taken overseas many years ago. He did remember that a dealer in Burford sold it and gave me his name; I used the internet to try and track him down but with no success, so I just contacted the antique dealers in Burford until I found one who knew where the original dealer was and gave me his contact details.  I tracked this gentleman down in his retirement home on the South Coast and he remembered selling the chair to an American serviceman and as luck would have it he still had some contact details for him. So after some more hunting around on the internet I eventually made contact with the owner of this chair. He was very pleased to hear of my interest in it and after a short while some photographs that his grand daughter had taken arrived as email attachments - and what a wonderful revelation they were! Many thanks to Del Francis in California for allowing me to use these pictures of his chair; they make a very exciting contribution to the understanding of the vernacular chair making in Eastern England.

© William Sergeant 2014 and 2020

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

26

Windsor side chair, signed WILSON GRANTHAM, so turned out by John Wilson of Little Gonerby. A hoop back design with a pierced splat made out of yew wood. Chairs by this maker are rare.

40

Windsor side chair, unsigned, but identical to others signed TAYLOR GRANTHAM, hoop back support with spindles and splat.