This year is Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters, a celebration of Scotland's lochs, waterways, islands and coastlines, and so it’s rather fitting that one of our recently completed projects was lighthouse related.

We were commissioned by the Northern Lighthouse Heritage Trust, a charity dedicated to preserving Scotland’s lighthouse heritage, to restore 14 oak chairs. The chairs were made by Edinburgh’s famous cabinet maker, William Trotter in 1820 for the Northern Lighthouse Board.

Trotter, who was a highly respected cabinet maker, worked for the ‘great and good’ of Edinburgh’s New Town and had workshops and a shop on the site of the North British Hotel, now The Balmoral.

The chairs were in a bad state of repair and we had to carry out a considerable amount of restoration work to the frames before tackling the upholstery. The upholstery was stripped back to the original horsehair first stuffing which was then re-used in the process. We upholstered the chairs in Johnstons of Elgin wool fabric.

There is a real sense of history around these chairs and we very much hope they will still be around for the next 200 years!