Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture

The work surveys vernacular English cottage and farmhouse furniture from the late sixteenth century through the nineteenth, contrasting local, hand-made pieces with contemporary high-style cabinetmaking. It examines characteristic forms such as oak chests, gate-tables, dressers, Windsor chairs and ladder-back seats, materials and construction methods including carving, turning and hand-forged nails, and regional types like Lancashire wardrobes. The author discusses difficulties of precise dating, the persistence of traditional designs across generations, collecting guidance, and the decline of village cabinet-making under industrial manufacture; numerous illustrations and a chapter on old English chintzes accompany the text.