A conversation with Simon Macintyre, a specialist tutor in furniture restoration who runs his own restoration business in West Sussex in England.
Simon Macintyre is one of the visiting external tutors at the Chippendale International School of Furniture. He teaches the skilled techniques involved in fine furniture restoration for a week in the first term and a second week in the third term.
Dr Lucy Worsley meets Anselm Fraser and learns how to make a Thomas Chippendale chair leg at the Chippendale International School of Furniture.
She describes the great craftsman’s famous Director as “like an Ikea catalogue” and sees a Chippendale chair worth a £1 million.
At the Furniture School, historian Dr Lucy Worsley has a shot at making a Chippendale chair leg in the School’s workshop using traditional methods with a little help from Anselm’s guidance.
UK service men and women from the Army, Navy and RAF may now qualify for a grant of £1,000 to £2,000 towards their Chippendale International School of Furniture fees, because the Furniture School is now an Approved Learning Provider under the MOD’s Enhanced Learning Credit (ELC) Scheme.
“I’m looking forward to inviting more retired or redundant members of the Armed Forces onto our 9 month furniture making course,” says Anselm Fraser, the Furniture School Principal.
Chippendale School of Furniture’s Anselm Fraser fuses big sky thinking with commercial savvy
Main part of a feature published in Good Woodworking in Growth Rings in October 2011. Reproduced with thanks. Words: Darren Loucaides. Photos: Dave Roberts.
As mist settles on the hills surrounding this secluded spot in Gifford, 25 miles east of Edinburgh, it feels like we’ve happened upon a deserted country house. Chippendale International School of Furniture is out for summer, and stalking around its exhibition hall, quiet but for our footfall thundering across the rugged floorboards, the atmosphere is eerie. Perhaps we’re hearing distant echoes, glimpses of movement just beyond our vision – hints of the life that usually fills the place.
This year’s 20 new furniture students at the Chippendale International School of Furniture all grew impressive moustaches during ‘Movember’; even the ladies enhanced their upper lips although they had to resort to hand crafting their creations from wood shavings. The team effort raised nearly £500 for the Prostate Cancer Charity. Go to our Facebook page …
Chippendale Furniture Students Grow Movember Moustaches Read More »
A blog by Ali Easton (of Organic Geometry) and Anselm Fraser (Principal of the International Chippendale School of Furniture) about their working holiday restoring a Swiss chalet.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love my workshop in the Chippendale Incubation Centre. Looking south, I can raise my eyes from my vice and see the quiet woods and tended fields of East Lothian climb towards the Lammermuir hills that roll over the horizon. I’m a lucky man. But I was given an offer that would take me away from that and jumped at the chance.
