Category Archives: Events

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Splats and Spindles: Six English Regional Chairs – Exhibition at The Museum of the Home from 12 May 2026

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Windsor armchair (detail), attributed to Jack Goodchild, c. 1885-1950 © Museum of the Home

Members may wish to note the forthcoming exhibition at the Museum of the Home:

Splats and Spindles: Six English Regional Chairs

Did you know that country chairs have their own language?

For centuries, across the different regions of England, people made chairs for everyday use based on local traditions, using timber and other materials readily available in the area. The craftmanship and design that informed regional chairmaking was passed from generation to generation, and distinct features formed unique chairmaking dialects associated with each region. 

Visitors will get up close with six chairs from the Bernard and Geraldine Cotton Chair Collection and Archive, most of which have not been on display for 20 years. Each chair links to a different region, where you will learn the stories of both celebrated and lesser-known makers, discover how everyday furniture can reflect local history and gain insight into Dr Bernard and Geraldine Cotton’s work.

This display is made possible with funding from the Regional Furniture Society and The Bernard and Geraldine Cotton Fund.

Date

Opens Tuesday 12 May 2026

Where

Undercroft, Home Galleries, Museum of the Home 

136 Kingsland Road E2 8EA

Price

Free

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Regional Furniture Society Sussex Conference – 13 July 2026 to 16 July 2026 at West Dean College

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The Long Gallery at Parham House

The 2026 conference will be held at West Dean College, near Chichester. Accommodation will be in single and double, en-suite student accommodation. The conference package includes an evening meal on Monday 13th July, breakfast, lunch and dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday plus breakfast on Thursday. There will be a more formal dinner on Tuesday evening. All meals will be at West Dean College except on Wednesday when there will be a packed lunch.  In the unlikely event of costs exceeding estimates, the Society may need to levy a surcharge of no more than £50 per person nearer the event.

The programme begins on Monday afternoon with a tour of the Mary Rose at Portsmouth Historic Dockyards and a talk by the Collections Manager focusing on furniture and wooden artifacts. On Tuesday we have a morning visit to the Weald and Downland Museum. In the afternoon at West Dean College, there will be a symposium exploring vernacular chairs made in Sussex and the origins of the Morris designs retailed as ‘Sussex’ chairs. Speakers at this event will be Janet Pennington, Guy Poulter and John Boram. 

On Wednesday we will be on a coach tour for the day, visiting Standen, an Arts and Crafts House in East Grinstead with its original furnishings and collection of Morris Sussex chairs; Parham House, a fine Elizabethan house sensitively restored and furnished with an eclectic mix of furniture and an important textile collection; St Peter’s Church at Parham and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Warminghurst.

Standen from the garden

On Thursday there will be an opportunity in the morning to view the furniture conservation workshops at West Dean and the extensive grounds before the AGM and furniture surgery in the Old Library.

The booking form is here. Please return the form to RFS Events Team by email: events.rfs@gmail.com by March 15th 2026. You will be notified by March 30th if you have a place and payment will be required at that point.

Demi culverin from 1537 © The Mary Rose Trust
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Visit to Mid-Wales Tuesday 26 to Thursday 28 May 2026

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Gregynog Hall

We will start on Tuesday afternoon at Gregynog Hall near Newtown, a fine nineteenth-century mansion with an exceptional early seventeenth-century carved oak room surviving from the earlier house. This was the twentieth-century home of the Davies sisters who were early collectors of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, all now in the National Museum of Wales. Twentieth-century collections in the house are furniture by Peter Waals and Brynmawr.  Gregynog is the home of the famous private press of the same name. In the early evening, we visit Cwm Weeg, Newtown, a fifteenth-century cruck farmhouse with late twentieth-century extensions and large garden including a grotto. 

On Wednesday morning we meet at Brithdir Hall, Berriew, a sixteenth-century timber-framed house with later Georgian alterations and an interesting collection of early pictures and furniture. Lunch will be at the Horseshoes Inn, Berriew. In the afternoon we will have a tour of Vaynor Park, Berriew, a seventeenth-century brick-built mansion substantially embellished c.1840 by Thomas Penson. It has been home to the current owner’s family since the mid-eighteenth century and its collections include fine twentieth-century pictures. This is followed by an early evening visit to Llanerchydol Hall, near Welshpool, an early nineteenth-century neo-gothic house by one of the Reptons, containing some of the original mirrors and pier tables. 

On Thursday we visit Walcot Hall, Bishops Castle, a brick mansion by William Chambers for 1st Lord Clive, with substantial twentieth-century alterations. Our final visit will be to the Judge’s Lodgings, Presteigne, with early nineteenth-century purpose-built court rooms and cells by Edward Haycock and original furnishings. 

A two-course lunch on Wednesday and Thursday, a two-course supper on Wednesday and tea and cake on all three days is included. 

Numbers will be limited to 30

Cost: £225

Please complete the Booking Form and send to RFS Events Team at events.rfs@gmail.com by 27 March 2026. You will be sent payment details in the following week.

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Visit to Wycombe Museum, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire – Thursday 23 April 2026

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The visit will start at 10:00, with a welcome and coffee at the Wycombe Museum. We will have a talk by curator Catherine Grigg on chair making in the area followed by an update on the chair conservation work and development of the new store, the Chair Discovery Centre. This is a major project to which the RFS has contributed grant funding. There will then be time for a self-led visit round the galleries before lunch of sandwiches and cake. 

In the afternoon we will walk to the Chair Discovery Centre, a 5-minute walk down the hill. 

The visit will finish at 4:00pm.

For members arriving by train, the museum is a few minutes’ walk from the station. There is limited on-site parking at the museum, with disabled parking available. Metered road-side parking and car parks are available within a five-minute walk.

Numbers will be limited to 20

Cost: £40.00 

Please complete the Booking Form and send to RFS Events Team at events.rfs@gmail.com by 26 February. You will be sent payment details in the following week.

Museum location and contact:

Wycombe Museum
Priory Avenue
High Wycombe
HP13 6PX

01494 957210

info@wycombemuseum.org

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Ash Rise Afternoon – National Museum of Scotland – Sunday 7 December 2025, 2 p.m.

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Members may be interested in the following event at The National Museum of Scotland:

Join us for a special film screening and panel discussion to hear about the Ash Rise project. Learn more about Scotland’s native ash tree, the challenges of ash die-back and how the material is celebrated in contemporary furniture making. 

Inspired by the ongoing touring exhibition Ash Rise, presented by the Scottish Furniture Makers Association, the documentary film of the same name tells the story of this beautiful tree, its historic and contemporary brilliance as a material and the challenges of ash die-back.  

The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring the film’s creative director, Tom Addy, alongside contemporary furniture maker, Helena Robson, and the Chief Forester for Scotland, Dr Helen McKay. The discussion will be chaired by Stephen Jackson, Senior Curator of Furniture and Woodwork. 

This auditorium event will be followed by an opportunity to meet the makers and see examples of ash woodwork and furniture up close in the Events Space on Level 2, from 15:30–16:30. The Events Space will also be open to visitors from 13:00 until the event begins at 14:00. 

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27 June 2025 – Chairs at Wycombe Museum

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Members may be interested to know that BAFRA (British Antique Furniture Restorers’ Association) has arranged a visit to the Wycombe Museum https://wycombemuseum.org.uk the morning of Friday 27thJune 2025 where, at 11am,  we will have a talk on Chairmaking in the Chilterns by curator Catherine Grigg followed by a tour of the chairs and hopefully the opportunity to examine more closely some of the exhibits there.  We would like to meet for lunch somewhere and then are planning to move on to High Wycombe Chair Making Museum CIC –https://www.kraftinwood.com/ for a guided tour by Robert Bishop.

If anyone fancies even more Chair related activity there is the option to do the chair trail –https://wycombemuseum.org.uk/here-chair-everywhere-heritage-walking-trail at their leisure.

This is free to BAFRA members with a nominal charge of £10 for non-members (lunch not included)

To book your place please contact Diane at Head Office headoffice@bafra.org.uk 01939 210826

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Reminder – Bill and Gerry Cotton – a celebratory reception: Monday 9 September from 2.00 – 5.00pm Museum of the Home, London E2 8EA

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N.B. The Museum is closed on the Monday of the Reception: when you attend please enter by the Hoxton Station Entrance.

Members of the Regional Furniture Society and Furniture History Society are invited to a celebratory reception in honour of the 50 years Bill and Gerry Cotton have devoted to Regional Furniture Studies.

Just over 50 years ago, Bill Cotton was drawn to the possibility that country furniture could be defined by regional characteristics influenced by geography, materials, trade, rural customs and traditional ways of life.  He and Gerry started collecting chairs with makers’ stamps and brands which they referenced to trade directories, census returns and newspaper archives to establish provenance.  And so began a lifetime project to identify the makers and define the regional distinctions of furniture made across the British Isles. 

This reception at the Museum of Home will be a moment to reflect on their achievement and acknowledge the significance of the Cotton Chair Collection and Archive they have donated to the museum, and the massive indexes of English regional furniture makers now being added to BIFMO.

There will be short tributes led by Liz Hancock and Simon Swynfen Jervis at 2.30pm.

There is no charge for this event, but you are required to register. Places are limited and will be allocated first come, first served.  To register please email your details to: events.rfs@gmail.com

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Regional Furniture Society: Notice of Annual General Meeting 2024

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This year we are again going to offer the possibility of joining the AGM by Zoom.

The Annual General Meeting of the Regional Furniture Society will be held at the University of Kent, Canterbury in the Rutherford College Building and via Zoom on Sunday 30 June at 9:00 a.m.

The Agenda, the Minutes of the AGM held in 2023 and the Annual Report & Accounts for 2023 will be posted on the website in the next few days, as well as being available at the Conference/AGM on 30 June.

Members who wish to take part in the AGM via Zoom should email the Secretary on: justj2r2@gmail.com

The Secretary will then forward to those members the access code for the Zoom meeting, the Agenda, the Minutes of the AGM held in 2023, and the Annual Report & Accounts for 2023. This will be done a week before the meeting.

The Annual Report and Accounts for 2023 can also be sent to any member requiring a paper version. They should contact the Secretary to request a copy and should send an A4 self-addressed envelope.

Jeremy Rycroft

Secretary

28 May 2024