The Chair Farmer

For this episode I travelled to Derbyshire to meet a chair farmer. I have never met a chair farmer before. Gavin Munro meticulously grows trees in his orchard in the shape of chairs. Each one begins life upside down and is carefully trained, pruned grafted, and guided to form a back, seat and four legs.

These photographs show a tree growing in the orchard and a tree that has been harvested and is now a ‘grown chair’. Fullgrown is the project and passion of Alice and Gavin Munro. The idea to do this was formed over many years but one of the earliest influences were the bonsai trees that Gavin’s parents grew when he was growing up. As they explain in the podcast, they have learned that not every tree ‘wants’ to grow into a chair. Gavin does have a dream of growing a chest of drawers but for now it has been mirrors and lamps and chairs.

The Gatti chair - cast in bronze, displayed at the Sarah Myerscough gallery

Each chair is unique and one of the earliest and most successful chairs was the Gatti chair. It was shown in art galleries across the world. The Gatti chair has now been cast in bronze and is currently displayed in the Sarah Myerscough gallery in London. In this episode Sarah explains the painstaking process of casting the wooden chair in bronze. The bronze chair will be displayed on the Plant Heritage Missing Collector garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower show this year and a couple of months ago Sally, Kate and Will - the designers of the garden, got to see it for the first time.

You will also hear Doris; Alice and Gavin’s dog in this episode. She has learned how to escape from the orchard by jumping onto the compost heap so had to be on a lead during our walk!