Scottish Furniture

Scottish Vernacular Furniture

By coincidence we have several pieces of Scottish Vernacular Furniture in at the moment (Domestic Furniture) made for the ordinary Scottish croft or house hold.

We have a late 19thC Pine and Black Oat straw Orkney chair and a slightly later model with an oak frame and drop in rush seat.

Pine framed Orkney Chair

The pine framed model some times used drift wood to make the frame as tree where and are scarce in the Northern Isles.

Oak framed Orkney Chair

D M Kirkness a general carpenter set up a work shop in Kirkwall in the late 1800’s to make “Orkney Straw Backed chairs” with White Deal stained or Solid oak frames and in a choice of styles and sizes, the chair above is a Ladies chair. Examples of these can be found in the Bernard D Cotton book on “Scottish Vernacular Furniture pages 250-261.

Oak, Mahogany, Ivory & Bronze Spinning Wheel

Many homes in Scotland had a spinning wheel to spin wool or flax for their own domestic use of as a product to sell at the market.

Bronze Wheel and Mahogany spokes

The wheel we have is slightly more refined with a bronze wheel and turned ivory decorations and we believe come from the Renfrewshire area.