Chair of the Month: May 2025

Chair of the month for May is this smoker’s bow Windsor chair made by Stephen Hazell in Oxford.

Smoker’s bow chairs are a type of low-backed Windsor chair and probably got their name because the arms are the perfect height to support the elbows of someone smoking a pipe.

Most of the chairs held by Wycombe Museum are from the High Wycombe area, but a few, like this one, are from the wider Chilterns / Thames Valley area – one of the six main chair making regions of England. Each chair making region shares design and making characteristics. Find out more about Regional Furniture with the RFS link in the blue box below.

Museum staff are in the process of adding chair records to Wycombe Museum’s selection of online records with the help of funding from the Regional Furniture Society. This chair is one of the new additions. You can search the records below.