Windsor chair
The stick chair in which everything is fixed into a thick seat: legs from below, spindles and back from above.
The Windsor chair developed around High Wycombe and Windsor in the early 18th century. It was made by chairmakers who worked green timber in the woods and turned the legs on pole lathes.
The construction was so strong and cheap that the chair spread across the English-speaking world. In North America it became the most common chair of the 18th century, and stick chairs on the same principle are also found in Scandinavia.
Materials: Elm seat, beech or ash legs, bent ash or oak bow
Manufacture: The seat is hollowed with an adze and drawknife; the legs are turned and the spindles riven and wedged into bored holes.
Spindles and legs are fixed straight into the seat – there is no seat rail.
The hollowed, saddle-shaped seat.
Turned legs joined by an H-stretcher.