Richard Platt and Sam Cooper are the award-winning designers behind The Marchmont Workshop. Based on the Marchmont House estate in the Scottish borders, it is one of the last homes of British rush-seated chair making - a heritage craft that, until 2018, was in danger of dying out.
Image by: Sam Cooper
Every chair is turned, steam-bent and finished by hand using materials they have harvested and selected themselves, in line with the first principles of woodworking. Guided by the belief that good furniture should last a lifetime, they apply traditional skills and techniques that have been passed down from master to apprentice through six generations. Their designs range from Arts and Crafts classics to contemporary silhouettes, all utilising the strength, beauty and versatility of native timbers.
How did you get into furniture making / tell us about your backgrounds before Marchmont.
Rich: Making things has always been a hobby, and I was constantly taking things apart and putting them back together. I actually thought I was going to be a musician growing up, so I studied Music at University. However, halfway through I realised I should be making things, so set to learning more hands-on skills alongside my degree. I did a fine furniture course and actually decided I would make instruments. It was whilst I was setting myself up as a luthier [a maker of stringed instruments] that I realised I needed to support myself in some way whilst that got up and running. I chanced upon an advertisement for an apprentice to rush-seated chair maker Lawrence Neal. The opportunity was too good to pass up - it ticked nearly all of the boxes I had been trying to tick with luthiery, and I haven’t looked back!
Sam: I'd had a few different plans before taking up furniture making. Like Rich, I'd always been drawn to working with my hands and had been a hobbyist green woodworker for a number of years. After dropping out of an engineering degree that wasn't hands-on enough for me, I followed one of my passions and got my license to be a scuba instructor and moved halfway across the world. When back in the UK for a while and wondering where to head off to next, I stumbled upon the same apprenticeship and the rest is history!
Image by: Sam Cooper
The first iterations of many of your pieces were first designed over 100 years ago. What do you think are the key ingredients for ensuring a design will stand the test of time?
There are two points here: aesthetic longevity and physical longevity. The latter is easier to answer: make things well. We use greenwood (unseasoned timber) for our chairs due to the wood’s properties which we can exploit to make a stronger chair. We understand the way it reacts as it dries; by using techniques such as steam bending alongside careful wood selection (and patience!) we can make a chair half the weight but twice as strong.
The rush seats are obviously not going to last as long as the wooden structure. But because they are able to be repaired when they wear out (usually after 30-40 years of use), we simply put a new one in. We’ve repaired chairs made by our predecessors that are 140 years old!
As far as aesthetic longevity is concerned, we just create what we would want to use ourselves. We believe that if you make what you find attractive, people whose taste aligns with that will find you one way or another. We’re often told that our designs have a sort of timeless quality, making them as comfortable in old farm houses as they do in more modern homes.
Image by: Sam Cooper
Do you offer any customisations - maybe for clients looking for ways to make a traditional design feel at home in a contemporary setting?
Yes, we do. We’re lucky to have a vast catalogue of designs for people to choose from - around 12 in total, with countless variations available in wood choice, paint colour, arms and so on. But sometimes clients will ask to tweak our designs to their own preferences - and that’s completely fine! We often adjust the height or aspects of our chairs to suit their personal needs, and we’ve also done lots of painted chairs where a client will specify the colour or finish to go with their kitchen. We’ve also changed smaller turned details on the chairs to match a customer’s aesthetic, as well as carving important names and dates into a piece to commemorate special occasions. This is particularly popular with children’s chairs.
We’ve recently developed a more contemporary range of chairs starting with our Canopy chair, which still utilises all of our traditional, sturdy methods but produces a chair more suited to modern settings.
Image by: Sam Cooper
What happens to your waste?
Our sawdust and waste rush goes to our compost pile, the lathe shavings go to our neighbour’s chickens, and the offcuts go to our logburners to heat our homes!
What’s your favourite part of the process - from harvesting the rush to handing over the finished product to a client?
We genuinely enjoy every aspect of chair making. The rush harvest is the rarest of jobs, only happening once a year in the height of summer. It’s hard work spending many hours in washers in the water and tying up the bundles in the blazing hot afternoon sun, but we look forward to it every year.
Image by: Sam Cooper
The woodwork is one of the more popular jobs in the workshop, with a special place in our hearts for turning the parts on the lathe. And the sawmill - where everything starts - is such a great moment because we see a log get turned into a usable piece of furniture. It’s incredibly gratifying.
Of course, it’s amazing when customers come to pick up their furniture - seeing their reaction and knowing our furniture will give them decades of use.
What advice would you give to someone looking to get into furniture-making - specifically a handmade heritage craft such as yours?
Utilise as much help as you can get. There are organisations out there willing to fund the upkeep of traditional crafts. We found our job through the Heritage Craft Association who are the authority on endangered craft. In that same vein, ask for help from those who already know what they’re doing. People are generally much nicer than you think! Often even if they can’t teach you themselves they know someone who can.
What does luxury mean to you?
Something that brings you joy. It doesn’t have to be expensive or rare, but if every time you use it you feel at home - that’s luxurious.
