Sometime ago I was asked to look at repairing an old chair with a loose back. Not being the highest priority I didn’t get around to it immediately and its been kicking around the house waiting for me. It’s a very small cottage so it’s hard for me to ignore things forever however much I try and finally curiousity got the better of me and I had a good look at the chair.
That’s when I noticed that it showed signs of being hand made of greenwood. There is a distinct oval shape to the legs, hard to see but you can feel it, where the wood has dried since the legs were turned. There are a few digs in the finish, where the chisel has dug into the wood surfaceas it’s turned.
And there are flats on the beads and swellings where the blank was not quite wide enough, though these have been turned to the inside of the chair so they don’t spoil the finish.
One of the flats clearly shows the cambium of the wood – so the leg has been made by cleaving and turning greenwood.
Although the chair is rough and ready I really like it’s proportions and simplicity. The rough finish appeals to me as well, all a part of the craft as these chairs were functional above all rather than art. I’ve not succeeded in finding out much about it, with faint hopes of tracing who made it. As far as I know it came down from Norfolk where it belonged to Alison’s great aunt Gertie. The normal response to ‘do you know anything about Auntie Gertie’s chair?’ is ‘Yes, it belonged to Auntie Gertie’. I haven’t got around to repairing it yet but I am making a copy of it starting with the legs.
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