Probably one of the best places to start with the origins of country furniture, is with it’s opposite, ‘town furniture’, although this is not referred to in quite the same way. Town furniture would have been the contemporary furniture of its time, fashionable and stylish. It is hard to imagine these days, with supersonic air travel, digital telecommunications and the internet, but new ideas and fashions took time to spread, and most people were restricted to travelling only as far as a day or two would allow, by horse, with or without a carriage. Eventually, however, fashion reached the landed nobility, rural gentry, and wealthy yeomen, who bought the modern furniture of their day and displayed it in their homes.

Gradually, these new styles trickled out into wealthy country houses of rural England and eventually local furniture makers caught sight of these, adapting them as best they could. They did not always have the same degree of skill, as the teaching of these new techniques was not always available, nor the supply or money for the raw materials. Town house furniture displayed examples of the veneering of laburnum ‘oysters’ (cut from end grain), burr walnut, inlaying and marquetry, elaborate carving, the use gold leaf on gilding, black ‘japanning’ and the wider use of brass and silver.

The country furniture makers did their best, and simplified furniture followed in the trail of the fashion of the day. Gradually, less wealthy homes saw the bent back chair, ‘S’ scrolls, twisted turning, pad foot and later cabriole legs. Country furniture became more refined, with more slender and elegant lines were being used, with the introduction of the cabriole leg, and no stretchers between the legs.

The majority of the country furniture was made from oak, although chestnut, ash, elm, beech, as well as yew and some fruitwoods were used. Pine (also referred to as deal) was used and often painted, supplying those at the cheaper end of the market. In recent years, many of these pieces have been stripped and polished revealing a very popular antique pine look, much of which has been copied within the reproduction market.

The other noticeable result of the people not travelling great distances is the development of local styles. This is particularly obvious when looking at country chairs and dressers (not just Welsh), many of which are often named by county when describing the style, North-Welsh, South-Welsh, Montgomeryshire, Cumberland, Lancashire, and Pembrokeshire dressers to name a few. There are many fine examples of quality Welsh and Irish pine dressers. In medieval times, there were boards on which people stored cups, hence cup boards. The next development was the tier system, as found on the rack (the top half) of a dresser, and eventually when the women had complained enough about the dusting, these were covered in, but still keeping the name cupboard.

Chairs developed from simple stools or longer benches, and ‘properly joined’ chairs were very time consuming to make by hand, (and still are) and heavier in style. Tricky angles, shaped legs, accurate shoulders on tenons, drop-in seats, all take time.

The rural craftsmen developed the stick-back chairs, evolving into a couple of simplified alternatives, rush-seated, and Windsor chairs (solid wood seats, traditionally elm), speeding up production, and reducing cost, making them more widely available and very popular. The term Windsor, was derived as a result of chair makers congregating in the woodlands around the Thames Valley, Slough, and selling their products in Windsor market.

The basic construction involves mainly turned components, although some are steam bent, to give them their shape. Woodturners, or ‘Bodgers’ went into the woodland areas, and used beech and ash to produce turned components (legs, stretchers, back spindles, etc.) using a pole lathe. Unseasoned timber is put between the centres of a lathe and a loop of twine twisted around it, reaching from a treadle under the lathe, to a bent over young tree or a springy bough, the foot treadle is depressed by the operator, rotating the wood being turned, without any complicated mechanisation, (indeed, about as green as it gets). The turned pieces are fitted into holes drilled into the other parts, making a strong frame from a ‘stick’ construction, both light, yet sturdy.

Windsor chairs became the easiest chair to mass produce, and subsequently the most popular, and High Wycombe, just north of Windsor became its centre, (there is an excellent museum there showing the history and development of these chairs, with fine examples).

As the ‘Walnut period’ drew to a close (1670- 1730), the ‘town’ furniture started importing the newly discovered mahogany, leading to the early mahogany (1730-1770), and the later mahogany (1770-1810) periods. These dates are very closely linked to the early and later Georgian periods. Meanwhile, the roots of country furniture were firmly established in rural Britain, and simplified styles developed throughout the Georgian period, and into the Victorian era, with a strong country flavour.