Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back armchair inscribed 17 W*H 55 on the topmost of 5 domed ladders with downward double half-round shaping, straight back poles with finials, scroll arms morticed into turned front legs, missing rushing bars, with double stretchers all round, 1 of which is missing WS 202

Lincolnshire rush-seated ladder back armchair inscribed 17 W*H 55 on the topmost of 5 domed ladders with downward double half-round shaping, straight back poles with finials, scroll arms morticed into turned front legs, missing rushing bars, with double stretchers all round, 1 of which is missing WS 202

The top ladder of this chair is clearly incised with the date and initials "17 W*H 55": I am sure that they are contemporary with the making of the chair. Even more remarkably, I have a provenance to go with it, namely that it has been in the same house in northeast Lincolnshire for the last 65 years, having been purchased in a village hall house clearance sale in the south of the county in 1953. I had been aware of its presence for some while as the owner has several other examples of rush-seated Lincolnshire  chairs but only recently did I realise the significance. 

Detail of WS 202 inscription "17 W*H 55"

When I was looking through David Knell's English Country Furniture 1500 - 1900, (1st published 1992, 2nd edition 2000)  I came across two virtually identical chairs on p. 291, though they are dated 1742 and 1739. Of those chairs, Knell says: 

"Incised dates can occasionally be authenticated by subtle variations in the shape of numerals at different periods. The style certainly suggests contemporaneity in this case."

The style and positioning of the numerals on the 1739 chair shown at p. 291 is identical to that above and that chair has a six-pointed star in the middle as well, though no initials. 

Knell attributes these chairs to the north in general and possibly to Lincolnshire, but the one pictured above has a firm association with the county. It can be said with a fair degree of confidence that this chair is at least 264 years old. Even though the condition is very poor, with loose joints, broken rushing rail and some shortening of the legs, the ash wood used to make the chair is in sound condition.

The chair was in my house for some time, during which time I was able to assess and photograph it; on returning it to the owner, I stressed the importance of the preservation of this remarkable survivor and asked that it was not to be sat upon. Indeed I took another armchair along to take its place in the kitchen, so that this one could be positioned in the house where no one could use it.

© William Segeant 2019 and Julian Parker 2020

Lincolnshire Caistor lath back splat back Windsor rocking chair with 4 laths, turned stiles, scroll arms, turned underarms with 2 short spindles, straight sided seat, 1 ring legs with vase-shaped feet x 4, H stretcher with bobbin turning WS 61

Lincolnshire Caistor lath back splat back Windsor rocking chair WS 61

This chair came from the same auction and the same house as WS 62; there are so many features that are common with the spindle-backed Caistor chairs and this one that there is every chance it was made in the same town. Also I did not realise until I got it home that there are initials stamped on the rear of the seat: 'CM'. A quick search of Dr B D Cotton's The English Regional Chair (1990) reveals a chairmaking apprentice Charles Maddison working in Caistor - intriguing.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Caistor chair with curved crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 3 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 63

A Caistor chair - from John Shadford workshop WS 63

This chair  turned up in a Grantham antique shop: they are just unmistakeable! There are some subtle difference compared to WS 62; no cut outs notched into in the crest rail, no rings on the back spindles and three rings on the legs. These chairs that are attributed to John Shadford in Caistor are really special - by that I mean that this chair design had no predecessor and no evolution. They just appeared in Shadford's notebook and it seems they were made in large quantities for many years.  If you take a moment to consider the traditional Windsor chair, you can see a clear path in the subtle design changes over many years and regions , always being honed to meet the current tastes of fashion - not so with this chair. The reason may be that Shadford deliberately set out to design a new chair in an already extremely competitive market. When he decided to set up in his own business after being an apprentice to William Shirley for 14 years he must have realised that if he was going to stop in Caistor with his mother and their house-renting business he had to produce a different chair to that which was already being made there. Hence he sat down with a clean piece of paper and designed this chair from scratch: this is reinforced by his pencil drawings in his notebook - see these pages reproduced from his notebook He was a remarkable man to produce such a successful design and history does not give him enough credit. This chair is currently on loan to the Caistor Heritage centre, on public display.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Caistor chair with curved notched crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail with bobbin and ring turnings, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 2 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 62

A Caistor chair - from John Shadford workshop WS 62

These spindle back Caistor chairs that appear in John Shadford's notebook just keep turning up. This one appeared at an auction in Sheffield and had been in the vendor's family for many years and had been well cared for judging by the great condition. There is a label stuck underneath saying that it was supplied by Summers Bros of Scarborough.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Caistor Windsor rocking chair with curved notched crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail with bobbin and ring turnings, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 1 ring very large legs with vase feet, H stretcher with bobbin and 2 ring turning WS 55

High back Caistor Windsor rocking chair with curved notched crest rail of large proportions WS 55

This Caistor rocking chair attributed to John Shadford is approximately two inches wider than the usual spindle-back Caistor rocking chairs. It has heavier legs which are only slightly exaggerated in this picture by the camera but is in excellent condition  It was obviously made for someone who was a bit broader in the beam!  It is a lovely chair for all that: I was lucky enough to get this out of an auction at Petersfield in Hampshire.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Caistor Windsor rocking chair with curved notched crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail with bobbin and ring turnings, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 2 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with bobbin and 2 ring turning WS 39

High back Caistor Windsor rocking chair with curved notched crest rail WS 39

I have seen many Caistor chairs made by John Shadford but this one has to be the very best condition of them all; I was lucky enough to win this at a Cambridgeshire auction for a modest amount even though the auctioneers had given it correct attribution and description. On collection I inquired as to its provenance and was told that it come via a retired local antique dealer who was letting go some of his private collection. Pause for a moment and study this picture: you will never see a better Caistor rocker.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Caistor chair with curved notched crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail with bobbin and ring turnings, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 3 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 35

Caistor chair - John Shadford workshop WS 35

This chair belongs to Margaret and Keith Mottram. They kindly allowed me to include it on this site.  I think this one started life as a rocker and some adjustment has been made: the underarm support turnings and low arms are typical of a rocker but it is the right height for a conventional chair.  Now look closely at the leg turnings: they vary. If this one had the rocking stays removed it would become very low and frankly uncomfortable. Perhaps this one got returned to Caistor to have a conventional undercarriage put on and it didn't get a matched set of legs. This chair has been in this Lincolnshire family a long time.

Baptised at Caistor on 2nd April 1828 to parents Richard and Frances Shadford, John was the middle of three and was born deaf. His eldest sister was Mary Anne (baptised 2nd January 1826) and the youngest was Frances Rosamond (baptised 25th July 1836) His parents were married at Claxby near Normanby on 6th September 1825 so the first child was born 4 months after the wedding. In the marriage register Richard signs his name in a bold hand and is described as a singleman of Caistor; Frances’s maiden name was Quickfall and the witnesses were her parents William and Anne Quickfall. Oddly the record of Richard’s birth has not been found yet but it is assumed that he was one of many children of the parents Thomas Abey and Jane Shadford from Nettleton. There are other families of Shadfords in this part of Lincolnshire mostly connected with farming.  Richard is recorded throughout the 1830s by the Land tax records, noted as a joiner and paying his dues on a self-owned garden, house and workshop. John’s grandparents, the Quickfalls, were famers near Caistor and both his sisters married farmers (to become Rickells and Grantham in name). All this goes to show that the young John grew up in a comfortable background and used to his father's wood working business.

At the age of 12 John would have witnessed the funeral at Nettleton of his father in 1840. No will or cause of death has been found. However this did not mean that the family became impoverished as the Rate Book for Caistor in 1844 notes that the widow Shadford was collecting rent from 4 properties. Intriguingly the rateable value of the house and shop she was renting to William Shirley was identical in amount to which the Shadford family was living in for the 1840 assessment. Perhaps , after the death of Richard, the remaining Shadford family moved to a small house and rented their former house and workshop to the young Windsor chairmaker from Grantham. It was about this time when John was 16 years old that he became an apprentice to their tenant, William Shirley.

There was another injection of wealth into the family as on 27th Jan 1846: there happens the death of his grandfather, the farmer William Quickfall, whose will makes fascinating reading . He was obviously a well-to-do man as he leaves his farm and premises at Tealby to his brother Samuel at South Kelsey. His remaining estate was still valued at over three thousand pounds and this was divided between his three daughters. John’s mother receiving five hundred pounds cash along with a further three hundred pounds secured by title deeds of property in Caistor as well as a share in the household goods etc.

From here the life of John Shadford may well have become obscured by the passing of time but for the fact that he made entries into a note book which is now in the Lincolnshire Archives and the public can view copies of it on request . In the history of English vernacular chairmaking this book is unique as no other record has been found by any other maker showing designs or drawings . Although the book originally had entries by someone else, the empty pages were used by John to draw chairs and furniture as well as to make notes on the collection of rent from his properties. In 1859 he wrote the words for his business card, saying that he had been apprenticed to William Shirley for over 14 years and was now setting up his own business of chairmaking from the premises vacated by Shirley. The outline of the famous spindle-backed Caistor chair is drawn 5 times.

In 1836, when he was 36, he married Harriot Hansen, a farmer's daughter 43 years old, who had had a daughter a few years before but had since died, so there was no more children and hence no heirs. John died at the age of 62 in 1890, one year after William Shirley, and in his will he leaves all his possessions to his beloved wife.

ⓒ William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

High back Lincolnshire Caistor chair with curved notched crest rail, turned stiles, 7 spindles both above and below the cross rail with bobbin and ring turnings, scroll arms, turned underarm supports with 4 short spindles, straight seat sides, 2 ring legs with vase feet, H stretcher with 4 bobbin turning WS 28

High back Lincolnshire Caistor chair with curved notched crest rail WS 28

Probably the most easily recognised of all Lincolnshire-made chairs: this one is often referred to as a Caistor Chair as it was made by John Shadford of Caistor. The most remarkable thing about him was that he was born deaf, but it did not stop him setting up his own business in his late twenties and producing these chairs. I have seen a good number of them, usual as rockers or short legged variety, but this one is of standard seat height. You will have noted all the distinctive spindle turnings at the back: these would have taken longer to make than the conventional bow back windsors but there is no steam bending involved. There is an inherent weakness in these chairs though: where the armrest meets the back turned stile is only glued and they do have a tendency to come loose. John Shadford was apprenticed to William Shirley junior who had learnt chairmaking skills from his father (William Shirley senior) in Grantham.

© William Sergeant 2012 and 2020

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