Carver Chairs

A carver is the dining chair with arms. It goes at the head of the table — traditionally where the joint was carved, which is where the name comes from — and it is made wider and more substantial than the side chairs it sits with.

Most sets are ordered as six singles and two carvers. The one hard constraint is that the arms must clear the underside of the table frieze. We make a carver in every pattern we offer, in oak, cherry, mahogany or walnut.

The carvers we make

Cromwellian, high and low back. The seventeenth-century form: a square upright frame with turned front legs and stretchers, seat and back panels upholstered rather than boarded. Usually in leather, and the most formal chair in the range.

Panel back single and carver. A solid shaped panel filling the back, carved or left plain. Wooden seat or upholstered.

Coach House carved top panel back. The Coach House range’s own chair: a panel back with a carved top rail above it.

Caquetoire carver. A very old form — a tall narrow back over a seat that widens sharply towards the front, with arms curving outwards. It exists only as a carver.

Glendale carver. A cleaner, quieter pattern, for rooms where the table is meant to be the piece looked at.

Chippendale-style, country and provincial. The eighteenth-century cabinetmaker’s chair in its plainer English forms, with a pierced splat and a drop-in seat.

Oakamoor and Henbury stick back carver. The Oakamoor stick-back chair with arms: chunky, plain, timber-led.

Windsor carvers. Low back and high back stick back carvers, and a child’s carver, in ash. See Windsor chairs. Ladder back carvers in the wavey line and ribbon back patterns, usually rush-seated, are on the ladder back chairs page.

Barton and Gothic. Two further patterns, the Gothic often in cherry.

Seats

Carvers take the same five seat options as our side chairs: wooden, rush, drop-in upholstered, wrap-around drop-in, and fully upholstered, in your own material or in leather we supply — see the chairs hub. A fully upholstered carver at each end of a table with wooden or rush-seated singles marks the ends without making the room heavy.

Sizes and fit

Send us your table dimensions, particularly the height to the underside of the frieze, and we will confirm the carver pulls in.

Timbers and finishes

Oak, cherry, mahogany and walnut as standard; ash for Windsor frames. Specials on application: character oak, pippy oak in light, medium and heavy grades, oak selected for medullary ray, and clean knot-free timber.

Finishes: polished, painted, limed, sand-blasted, rub-through paint, natural, or colour matched to a sample. We can match furniture that is 100 years old to new reproduction purchases made the year before, which matters when a pair of carvers has to join an existing set.

Order free timber and finish samples, and send photographs and a piece of the finish if you are matching a set.

Made to your size

Seat height, width and depth, back height, arm height and carving are all open. Common requests: arms shortened to clear a table; a back raised for a taller sitter; carving taken from one pattern onto another; a pair of carvers to match singles bought years ago. Where the chair is a new design, our designers draw it first. See bespoke and commissioning.

Prices

Quoted per chair, separately from singles, with the seat type quoted separately again. Tell us the pattern, the numbers, the seat, the timber and the finish and we will give you a guide price. Special timbers, carving and finishes are on application. Lead time is typically ten to twelve weeks.

Frequently asked questions