Marchmont Workshop, established by chairmakers Sam Cooper and Richard Platt in 2020, make traditional rush seated, ladder-back chairs from green wood. It is the first new workshop making traditional rush seated chairs to open in the UK in 54 years. Sam and Richard opened the workshop after apprenticing with Master chairmaker Lawrence Neal in Warwickshire, England for two years. The workshop is based at Marchmont House, a large estate in the south of Scotland, owned by Hugo Burge, who with a lifelong passion for the rush seated ladder backed chairs, established the Master-apprentice opportunity with the longer-term intention of setting up the estate workshop when Neal announced he was retiring and closing his workshop. Neal was officially apprenticed to his father Neville Neal when he left school in 1966 at age 15. Neal, can directly track his making lineage through his father to notable makers of these ‘common chairs’ from the mid-18th century. Despite differences in geography and time, the chairmakers, their tools, techniques and skills remain the same. Marchmont Workshop is committed to not only continuing and sustaining traditional craft skills, but also to sustaining natural ecosystems for the production of the raw materials they use. The chairs are made from predominantly green ash responsibly sourced from UK woodland, which is traditionally turned on a pole lathe. The woven seats are made from rushes cut from the banks of UK waterways. Jointed and finished with a light wax polish there are no additional fixtures and fittings. The chairs are readily repairable.