The COP26 summit is yet another reminder of the grim fate that awaits humanity if it does not get its act together on the climate. Gas-guzzling boilers? No more to be sold by 2035. Coal? Out by 2040. Log burners? Forget it.
As with everything that is unhealthy when it comes to food and drink, it seems that there is a conspiracy afoot to take all enjoyment out of life.
So thank goodness for the virtues of antiques. As I have often rehearsed in this column, furniture, silver, works of art and ceramics, among many other well-crafted and delightful treasures, tick every green box that can be thought of when it comes to saving the planet.
As the Antiques Are Green movement advises us: “Invest in the Future, Recycle the Past.”
And what an example this campaign gives us to prove its point, the humble Windsor chair, a thing of beauty and practicality: “The chair parts were made by craftsmen who lived in the woods where the materials came from,” AAG tells us. “The turnings were produced on treadle-operated lathes, then parts were taken on foot to a local workshop to be assembled. From there the completed chairs would be distributed around the country by horse and cart or waterways.”
Some of these chairs are now well into their second century of use and treasured as much now as when they were first made – arguably more so.
“By buying this chair to use again we have conserved our natural resources and prevented the carbon footprint of another chair being produced, that possibly would come all the way from the Far East,” says AAG. On the other hand, a new mass-produced chair will hit the waste tip long before the antique Windsor chair is sold again at auction, goes to the restorers and is revived and retailed again for another 40 years’ use.
