What do you think of when you hear the term Windsor chair? Do you picture a pretty painted hoopbacked kitchen seat, a sturdy, dark-stained pub chair, or a sculptural design with elongated spindles and a horizontal crest rail? In truth, the Windsor chair can, and has, taken all of these and other forms over the centuries; for the Windsor name is not a signifier of a particular shape of chair, but rather of a specific, timeless and particularly robust construction.
A Windsor chair features spindles and legs mortised one by one into a solid wood seat, while most other chair designs feature back legs that extend into back uprights as continuous lengths. In early Windsor designs, legs and spindles were individually carved by hand and inserted into holes bored through the seat and ‘wedged’ to create
