Handcrafting Ladder Back Chairs

For over half a century master craftsman Lawrence Neal has been handcrafting ladder back chairs.  From the ash woodlands and rush filled rivers of rural Warwickshire to the Art Workers’ Guild meeting hall this video shows the historic lineage of ladder back chair and explore Neal’s making process.  He left school at the age of 15 to be apprenticed to his father, the beginning of 50 years of chair making.   Comprehensive instructions have never been recorded, but instead passed on between generations of masters and apprentices.  Most of the chairs are based on designs by Ernest Gimson. In 2017 Neal received funding to take on two apprentices but, in order for these not to be the last makers, decisions to be made to recognise the value and heritage of traditional crafts, and to support makers to continue to produce these historically-resonant objects.

Video can be seen here https://youtu.be/3Ae-7L11meg