LEDBURY'S Butcher Row House Museum will open for a new season with a focus on one of Bosbury's most famous sons, the Victorian and Edwardian chairmaker, Philip Clissett.

Clissett was a major influence on the Arts and Crafts movement, and there will be a display about the chair maker upstairs at the museum, in Church Lane.

In the latest Ledbury and District Civic Society newsletter, Prue Yorke, the organiser of the museum's volunteer rota said of Clissett: "Although from the back woods, he became a highly respected craftsman whose work influenced the Arts and Crafts movement and was much sought after in London society.

"The designer and architect, Ernest Gimson, trained with Clissett and drew much of his inspiration from the slender and economical design of the Bosbury chairs."

The new display, which opens when the museum opens for a new season, on Monday, March 26, has been conceived and created by Peter Young, who has worked for Herefordshire Council's museum service.

Philip Clissett became famous in his lifetime for his ladderback and spindleback chairs.

These chairs are now very collectable and sought-after, and examples may be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Clissett, who died in 1913 at the grand old age of 96, lived and worked in a cottage only a few hundred yards away from the Bosbury wood which now bears his name, the ten acre Clissett Wood, near Stanley Hill.

Remarkably, Clissett was known for using "green" timber and made his sturdy ladderback and spindleback chairs by hand, using a pole lathe.

The Butcher Row House Museum heads towards a new tourist season with its rota of volunteers full, with a number of newcomers on the books.