Windsor armchair
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1840
Materials
Ash, sycamore seat, residual paint.
Measurements
84 x 49 x 41 cm
Place of origin
West Country
Order this imageCollection
Lanhydrock, Cornwall
NT 882874.4
Summary
An ash 'continuous arm' Windsor chair, West Country, circa 1840. The armrests supported on two angled spindles and the seven back spindles fanning outwards, the sycamore seat on turned legs with H-stretcher, remains of green paint still visible.
Full description
Although no chairs of this distinctive model are recorded with name stamps it is believed that a small group of chair-makers in Yealmpton, close to Plymouth in Devon were making them during the first half of the 19th century. The 'continuous arm' Windsor chair was clearly more complicated to make than the more usual Windsor armchair with a hoop-back and a separate arm-bow and this fact may have contributed to it's short-lived production over approximately three decades only from circa 1812 through to the 1840's, when chair makers are listed in the parish records. Also at this time the larger firms in Plymouth and Exeter began marketing the 'fancy' chair which became very popular. See NT 883155 for another example, also at Lanhydrock. This chair is illustrated in Bernard Cotton 'The English Regional chair', Woodbridge 1990, page 276, Fig SW46 and captioned as 'Found in the Gatehouse, Lanhydrock, Cornwall'.
Provenance
Not indigenous to the house.
References
Cotton 1990: Bernard D. Cotton, The English Regional Chair, Woodbridge 1990, page 276, Fig SW46