Glastonbury chair is a nineteenth-century term for an earlier wooden chair, usually of oak, possibly based on a chair made for Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, England. The Glastonbury chair was known to exist since the Early Middle Ages, but seems to have disappeared from use in part of the Later Middle Ages; it re-emerged in use in Italy by the fifteenth century AD.
In England it was made originally from a description brought back from Rome in 1504 by Abbot Richard Beere to Glastonbury Abbey, and was produced for or by John Arthur Thorne, a monk who was the treasurer [1] at the abbey. Arthur perished on Glastonbury Tor in 1539, hanged, drawn and quartered alongside his master, Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, during the dissolution of the monasteries. The Abbot sat on a Glastonbury chair during his trial at Bishop's Palace, Wells, where one of the two original surviving examples (illustrated) can still be seen, together with other chairs of this age and later reproductions.
Another chair of the same style, believed at the time to be of the same date, was owned by Horace Walpole and kept in his Gothic pile Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, Middlesex. When the contents were sold in 1842, [2] the then vicar of Glastonbury, the Reverend Lionel Lewis, made an impassioned speech telling the bidders the chair belonged in Glastonbury. Nobody bidding against him, Lewis took the chair to St John's Church in Glastonbury where it remains. However, this chair is now believed to be a later copy. [3] [4]
The Glastonbury chair design has become popular with reenactors, owing to its simple construction, wide availability of plans , [5] and the opportunity for extensive decorative carving. As a result, there are likely more chairs of this pattern in existence now than there ever were in period.
The chair does not fold. Although it is frequently assumed to do so, especially when made with circular tenons, triangular frames remain rigid even if they are joined by bearings. If the tenons are tusked then the chair may be quickly dismantled for shipping. Chairs for re-enactment are usually made in this way, but there is no evidence in period that they were regarded as being especially portable. The peripatetic nature of upper-class life in the 15- and 16-hundreds meant most of its furniture was made to be transported.
Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician.
Woodworking is the skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinetry, furniture making, wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.
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William Thomas Beckford was an English novelist, art critic, planter and politician. He was reputed at one stage to be England's richest commoner. The son of William Beckford and Maria Hamilton, daughter of the Hon. George Hamilton, he served as a Member of Parliament for Wells in 1784–1790 and Hindon in 1790–1795 and 1806–1820. Beckford is best known for writing the 1786 Gothic novel Vathek, for building the Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire and Beckford's Tower in Bath, and for his extensive art collection.
Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. Its ruins, a grade I listed building and scheduled ancient monument, are open as a visitor attraction.
The Castle of Otranto is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – A Gothic Story. Set in a haunted castle, the novel merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since. The aesthetic of the book has shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music, and the goth subculture.
Carlton House, sometimes Carlton Palace, was a mansion in Westminster, best known as the town residence of King George IV, particularly during the regency era and his time as prince regent. It faced the south side of Pall Mall, and its gardens abutted St James's Park in the St James's district of London. The location of the house, now replaced by Carlton House Terrace, was a main reason for the creation of John Nash's ceremonial route from St James's to Regent's Park via Regent Street, Portland Place and Park Square: Lower Regent Street and Waterloo Place were originally laid out to form the approach to its front entrance.
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Linenfold is a simple style of relief carving used to decorate wood panelling with a design "imitating window tracery", "imitating folded linen" or "stiffly imitating folded material". Originally from Flanders, the style became widespread across Northern Europe in the 14th to 16th centuries. The name was applied to the decorative style by antiquarian connoisseurs in the early 19th century; the contemporary name was apparently lignum undulatum, Nathaniel Lloyd pointed out.
Richard Whiting was an English Catholic priest and the last Abbot of Glastonbury.
The Bishop's Palace and accompanying Bishops House at Wells in the English county of Somerset, is adjacent to Wells Cathedral and has been the home of the Bishops of the Diocese of Bath and Wells for 800 years. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building.
Daniel Pabst was a German-born American cabinetmaker of the Victorian Era. He is credited with some of the most extraordinary custom interiors and hand-crafted furniture in the United States. Sometimes working in collaboration with architect Frank Furness (1839–1912), he made pieces in the Renaissance Revival, Neo-Grec, Modern Gothic, and Colonial Revival styles. Examples of his work are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Hartland Abbey is a former abbey and current family home to the Stucley family. It is located in Hartland, Devon. The current owner is Sir Hugh George Copplestone Bampfylde Stucley, 6th Baronet.
A stool is a raised seat commonly supported by three or four legs, but with neither armrests nor a backrest, and typically built to accommodate one occupant. As some of the earliest forms of seat, stools are sometimes called backless chairs despite how some modern stools have backrests. Folding stools can be collapsed into a flat, compact form typically by rotating the seat in parallel with fold-up legs.
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Strawberry Hill House—often called simply Strawberry Hill—is a Gothic Revival villa that was built in Twickenham, London, by Horace Walpole (1717–1797) from 1749 onward. It is a typical example of the "Strawberry Hill Gothic" style of architecture, and it prefigured the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival.
Richard Bentley was an English writer and designer who was friends with Thomas Gray and Horace Walpole.
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The Church of Our Lady St Mary of Glastonbury in Glastonbury, Somerset, England, is a Roman Catholic church that was completed in 1940.
Since I live only an hour or so from Wells, I was able to visit the Bishop's Palace in Wells and measure the original Glastonbury Chair. Includes woodworking plans, and the 45 detail photos of the chair, with measuring tape for scale, which were used to construct the plans. Also 42 photos of 22 similar chairs around the UK.