Ladderback chairs (so-called because of the construction of the backs) started to be made across Britain in the seventeenth century. In the 1890s Ernest Gimson, a London architect, adapted and simplified the vernacular chairs he found still being made in the Cotswolds. This chair is his design. After his death in 1919, production of his furniture was continued by one of the craftsmen at his workshop, Edward Gardiner, who taught Neville Neal, the maker of this chair. Gardiner died in 1958, but as late as 1971 Neal was still making chairs like this, using techniques stretching back centuries and materials sourced near his Warwickshire workshop. The rushes for the seat, for instance, came from local rivers.