The Regional Furniture Society visited the Butter Museum in Cork during its visit to Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic in September 2019.  The film below was made by the Butter Museum as part of a conservation project. The explanations of butter-making are by Dr Claudia Kinmonth, author of the book Irish Country Furniture. A revised edition of the book is being published by Cork University Press.  Claudia received a grant towards the production of this book from the Society.

Butter Museum Culture Night 2020

The index of all the pieces which have appeared in the Newsletters has been updated for the most recent issue No 73.

William Sergeant has pointed out to me that in my own piece about chairs in Lincolnshire wills and inventories the links in the Newsletter piece are tricky to navigate. 

The links below should remedy the issue:

1452: A Flemish chair in the inventory of William Duffield, Canon Residentiary of York, Southwell and Beverley, and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford

1505 to 1530 & 1530 to 1532: early references to chairs, stools, forms, trestles and settles in Lincolnshire Wills

1532 to 1534: early references to chairs in Lincolnshire Wills

1661 – 1714 Probate Inventories – what were the citizens of Lincoln sitting on during the reigns of Charles II, James II, William & Mary and Anne?

1663 – Bishop Sanderson’s Flagg-Bottomed Chairs and Other Stories

1665 – Inventory of John Brooke, Chair maker of St Martin’s Parish, Lincoln

1691 – Inventory of William Botamley, Chair maker of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

1696 – Probate Inventory of John Dring of St Peter’s in the Arches, Lincoln 4th December 1696

1705 – John Ashton late of Spalding in the County of Lincoln, chair maker – Inventory

1718 – 1729 The comparative value of an early 18th century Windsor chair

Julian Parker

Website Editor

Regional Furniture Volume 34 will include an article about the chest in St Martin’s Church, Hindringham, Norfolk.

Johann von Katzenelnbogen in Maryland has an interesting blog which mentions this chest and also has a clever piece of detective work on mediaeval woodworking tools, starting with a stained glass window in the cathedral at Chartres.

Watch this space …

This article describes a plain Spanish chest which has had gothic carving added in recent decades. John Andrews’s book British Antique Furniture: price guide and reasons for values (ACC, 1989, p. 162) illustrates a larger chest which has been later carved in a very similar style of gothic carving. 
There are various estimates of the original dates of such chests, from sixteenth to eighteenth century.

Regional Furniture Society members will be interested to learn that Tim and Betsan Bowen have just published The Welsh Stick Chair – a visual record (Pethe Press 2020). Welsh-speaking members and those learning Welsh will be delighted to discover that the volume is bilingual with the text in Welsh and English next to each other. The authors have used images of the chairs, stools and tables which they have photographed over many years as dealers in Welsh vernacular furniture. Their aim in producing this book is to extend the knowledge and appreciation of these important items of the Welsh folk art tradition. The book is available here. A review will appear in the Newsletter in due course.

The Events Secretary has received this message from Ian Deakin who was looking forward to attending the cancelled West Yorkshire study day:

“Myself and my family are NHS employees currently working with the Covid19 crisis. I find it a great release for me to learn more about my passion for early oak furniture when I have time and start to visit collections again.  I have been looking for some time for Tobias Jellinek’s Early British Chairs and Seats 1500 -1700*. If you know of any member who is selling a copy or where it can be sourced at a ‘reasonable’ cost I would be very interested. There are copies available online (which don’t seem to sell) for very high prices at the moment.“

 If you have a copy you are prepared to part with, please contact the Events Secretary who will forward your message to Ian.

*ISBN-13: 978-1851495818

Unfortunately Society events have had to be postponed or cancelled because of coronavirus risk. Here is the updated calendar which makes for sad reading.

In order to keep us up-to-date and, I hope, entertained, I have started both an RFS Twitter feed (which updates onto the front page of this website) and an Instagram feed for which I cannot locate a widget to achieve the same.  At the moment I am posting pictures mostly from our magnificent back catalogue of articles, with links on the Twitter feed to the relevant article from which the picture has been chosen.  I am supplementing this material with occasional contributions from William Sergeant’s and my Lincolnshire Chair blog.

Interesting and beautiful contributions are also invited from anyone who would like to contribute: please send photograph(s) (and brief caption explaining what, where and when) to regionalfurnituresociety@gmail.com.

Julian Parker

Website Editor

in succession to:

Ananda Rutherford, to whom our very grateful thanks for her nine years as Website Editor, and my personal thanks for handing over the website to me smoothly, with kindness, and in excellent order. I will try to maintain her high standards!

RFS members may like to get hold of a copy of the March 11th issue of Country Life:  the magazine contains a fascinating article by former RFS journal editor David Jones which dovetails an article on the building history of the castle by Mary Miers in the same issue. Members may recall that David conducted a study day of the 18th and 19th century furniture at Blair Castle in Perthshire last year, and this article reveals his recent discoveries.

In the turbulent times of the Jacobite rebellion of  the 1740s the Duke of Atholl commenced a transformation of  the castle from an antiquated fortress to a sophisticated Highland palace. He employed an impressive role-call of London and Scottish furniture makers including Thomas Chippendale. His programme was continued by successive Dukes reflecting the changes of fashion yet with the unifying strand of using unusual native woods, mostly from the Atholl Estates.

The Plantagenet (a pun on the Latin name for broom : Planta Genista) bureau-bookcase by Perth maker George Sandeman  ‘achieves unique whimsical effects’ in the use of broom-wood veneers laid in a striped pattern on an oak carcass. (photo: Country Life)

David suggests that  the imaginative patronage of furniture makers by successive Dukes of Atholl over the course of 100 years and their use of native timbers over mahogany is unparalleled in any other house.

Jeremy Bate