Projects
FURNITURE MAKERS
Project – The Rycote Chairs
The Rycote ladderback and the Rycote spindleback chairs are named in tribute both to Rycote Chapel just a mile from our workshops, and also to the now sadly disbanded Rycotewood College in Thame where many of our current and former makers trained.
The Rycote chairs are two fine examples of standards of the English country chairmaking tradition. We have manufactured many variations on the styles over the years, always with frequent reference to Dr Bill Cotton’s exhaustively researched and encyclopaedic work ‘The English Country Chair’. With the current chairs we have pared back some of the more elaborate detail, simplifying the turning pattern of the front leg, and the curve of the ladders and removing the purely decorative ‘rush rails’ around the seat. Other details have been refined such as the wedged pin of the front leg where it fixes through the arm, and the pattern of the spindleback turnings. Both chairs are generously proportioned and are available either with webbed and upholstered seats, or the more traditional rushed seats.
Rycote Chairs Gallery
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