The Chippendale Society launches a new Thomas Chippendale Interactive Website aimed at Primary School Children.

The Chippendale Society has launched a new and interactive website which will help engage primary school age children with the life and work of the famous Yorkshire furniture maker, Thomas Chippendale. The new website has been jointly funded by The Chippendale Society, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Leeds Art Collections Fund, the Friends of Nostell Priory, Harewood House Trust, Burton Constable Foundation and Temple Newsam House.

For several months staff at some of Yorkshire’s finest Country Houses, Burton Constable Hall, Harewood House, Nostell Priory and Temple Newsam, have been working with children from local primary schools to develop activities that can be used during school visits to these houses and also in the classroom. During this time the children have ‘carved’ motifs from clay, ‘gilded’ using silver foil and made marquetry fans, all with the guidance of experts. These visits have helped them to gain an understanding of the methods used by Thomas Chippendale to make his intricate furniture long before all the modern technology that we are used to now. 

The website has been designed to be fun as well as educational and amongst its features includes a ‘design a chair’ game, films of skilled craftspeople doing marquetry and gilding and also contains lots of other ideas for Chippendale related activities. Alongside the interactive elements there is also plenty of factual information, including a timeline of the life of Thomas Chippendale as well as the Georgian period he lived in. It also includes curriculum links, lesson plans and learning resources for teachers, along with a ‘Chippendale trail’ for each of the four country houses involved in the project which anyone can print out and take with them when they visit. 

The Thomas Chippendale interactive website can be viewed at www.chippendaleactivities.org