Restored for Charles, best seat in the house
700-year-old Coronation chair’s key role
IT has played a key part in the crowning of monarchs for more than 00 years. Now the Coronation chair – one of the country’s most precious and rarely seen pieces of furniture – is getting a makeover ahead of the enthronement of King Charles III on May 6.
And, astonishingly, it is still revealing its secrets as restoration experts discover unseen details.
The King will be crowned in the chair, which was commissioned in around 1300 by Edward I to house the Stone of Scone. Made of oak and originally covered in gold leaf with elaborate decorations of coloured glass, it would have looked as if it were made of solid gold.
Known to have been decorated by Edward I’s master painter with patterns of birds, foliage and a king, the chair is considered an unparalleled surviving example of medieval art – although its back is scarred with graffiti from the 18th and 19th centuries. A bomb attack in 1914 – believed to be by suffragettes – knocked a small corner off.
Westminster Abbey’s conservators are using sponges and swabs to clean it and are stabilising the gilding. They believe they have found a previously overlooked part of a figure, perhaps the toes of a king or saint, on the back.