Old Photograph Chairs Orkney Islands Scotland

Old photograph of Kirkness chairs on the Orkney, Scotland. David Kirkness was born in Westray, Orkney, 1855 and died in Kirkwall, Orkney, 1936. Like his father and grandfather, trained as a joiner in Orkney. In the 1870s he moved with his wife and growing family to Kirkwall, the principle town of these remote Scottish islands. There, he set up a general joinery workshop, making traditional straw backed Orkney chairs as a sideline. Twenty years later the Orkney chair had become the workshop’s main product. Over his lifetime Kirkness made a reported 14,000 chairs.



All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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