# The Coronation Chair > Walter of Durham, called Master Walter, king's painter - 1297-1300 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/walter-of-durham/coronation-chair-westminster-abbey/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-11 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Walter of Durham, called Master Walter, king's painter - **Date:** 1297-1300 - **Medium:** Oak, carved and joined without metal fixings, originally gilded and painted with punched gesso decoration, coloured glass insets and pseudo-cameos; gilt-bronze lions added later as legs - **Dimensions:** Approximately 2.05 m (6 ft 9 in) high. Width and depth are not consistently published in the sources consulted. - **Object type:** Furniture - **Period:** English, late 13th century, in continuous use and repair into the 21st century - **Current location:** Westminster Abbey, London - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary Edward I had this oak chair built between 1297 and 1300 for one reason: to hold the Stone of Scone, the block of sandstone he had seized from a defeated Scotland in 1296, so that every future English monarch would sit above it at the moment of coronation. It has done that job, with real gaps in the documentary record about exactly when it started, since somewhere between 1308 and 1399, and twenty-six monarchs including Charles III in 2023 have been crowned in it.Almost everything about its surface tells a story of loss and repair rather than survival: the original gilding, coloured glass and paint are mostly gone, worn away by souvenir hunters, cut into by generations of Westminster schoolboys, damaged by a suffragette bomb in 1914, and nearly ruined by a well-meaning Victorian varnishing in 1887 that a modern scholarly review calls a catastrophic restoration. The Stone itself was stolen from beneath the chair on Christmas Day 1950 by four Scottish students and broke in the attempt; it was formally returned to Scotland in 1996, on the condition, since honoured, that it comes back to Westminster for coronations.Conservation in 2010-2012 found real traces of the chair's lost colour, a rare yellow pigment called orpiment, confirming that this plain, dark object was once a blaze of gilding and paint. What it argues about, now as much as in 1300, has not gone away either: a 2015 academic review of the fullest modern study of the chair openly challenges its author's framing of the object as simply English, a live dispute this record reports rather than settles. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1296** Crown of England (Edward I) `[documented]` (seizure) Edward I seized the Stone of Scone from Scone Abbey following his defeat of John Balliol and invasion of Scotland, and brought it to Westminster as a spoil of that campaign. - **1297-1300** Crown of England (Edward I); made by Walter of Durham, king's painter `[documented]` (commission and construction) The oak chair was built to enclose the seized Stone. An initial plan for a gilt-bronze chair was abandoned for reasons of cost and weight. Master Walter was paid 100 shillings for his work. - **1300s-1399** Crown of England `[disputed]` (first ceremonial use) A 1308 manuscript illustration of Edward II's coronation shows the king in what is almost certainly this chair, but the first coronation for which its use is unambiguously documented is Henry IV's in 1399. Sources consulted disagree on which date should count as the chair's first use. - **1399-1650** Crown of England `[documented]` (continuous ceremonial use, with one interruption) Used at coronations from Henry IV onward. In 1653 it was removed to Westminster Hall for the installation of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector, the only recorded removal from the Abbey before the 20th century. - **1727-1821** Crown of England / Westminster Abbey `[documented]` (repair and damage) The gilt lion legs were replaced as a set in 1727, with one given a new head for George IV's coronation in 1821. In the same window, the Stone of Scone's lower edges lost pieces to nine hammer blows with no surviving explanation, and heraldic shields were removed from the chair's quatrefoil panels. - **1887** Westminster Abbey `[documented]` (restoration) The chair was coated in brown varnish and paint in connection with preparations around Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. A later scholarly review of Warwick Rodwell's study calls this a catastrophic restoration that destroyed original painted surface; attempts to remove the coating with the wrong tools and methylated spirits caused further damage. - **1914** Westminster Abbey `[documented]` (damage, bomb attack) An explosive device, attributed in contemporary reporting to the suffragette movement, detonated beneath or immediately behind the chair on 11 June 1914, breaking off a small corner fragment. No injuries and no confirmed prosecution are documented. - **1939-1945** Westminster Abbey, evacuated `[documented]` (wartime evacuation) With the Stone of Scone removed for safekeeping, the chair was evacuated by lorry to Gloucester Cathedral and stored in a sealed crypt recess for the duration of the Second World War before returning to the Abbey. - **1950-1952** Westminster Abbey (Stone temporarily removed) `[documented]` (theft and recovery) Four Scottish students removed the Stone of Scone from beneath the chair on Christmas Day 1950; it broke into two pieces during removal. The stone was recovered at Arbroath Abbey in April 1951, repaired, and returned to Westminster Abbey in February 1952. No prosecution followed. - **1996** Transferred to the Commissioners for the Regalia, Scotland `[documented]` (formal return of the Stone) The Stone of Scone was removed from the chair on 13 November 1996 and formally handed over at a ceremony at Edinburgh Castle on 30 November 1996, on the condition that it would return to Westminster for future coronations. The chair itself remained at Westminster Abbey throughout. - **2010-2013** Westminster Abbey `[documented]` (conservation and redisplay) A major conservation programme, led by the Hamilton Kerr Institute under Marie Louise Sauerberg with Warwick Rodwell as consultant archaeologist, moved the chair into a secure glazed case in St George's Chapel in April 2010, identified surviving orpiment pigment, and confirmed an originally gilded decorative scheme. The chair was redisplayed in 2013 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of the 1953 coronation. - **2023-present** Westminster Abbey; Stone at Perth Museum `[documented]` (coronation use and current display) The Stone of Scone was temporarily returned from Edinburgh Castle to be reunited with the chair for the coronation of King Charles III in 2023, then returned to Scotland; it has been on permanent display at the newly opened Perth Museum since March 2024. The chair itself was cleaned and stabilised by the Abbey's own conservator, Krista Blessley, ahead of the 2023 ceremony and remains on display at Westminster Abbey. ## Open questions - Was the chair used at the 1308 coronation of Edward II, as a manuscript illustration suggests, or is the first securely documented ceremonial use really Henry IV's coronation in 1399? Sources consulted are divided and this record does not resolve it. - Did Walter of Durham execute the chair's carpentry himself, or only its painting and gilding over joinery by unnamed carpenters? He is documented elsewhere exclusively as a painter, which sits awkwardly with accounts crediting him with the whole construction. - What proportion of the chair's surviving decorated surface is original 1297-1300 gilding and paint, as against 16th-19th century repair and the 1887 overpaint? The 2010-2012 conservation programme is the fullest analysis found, but no source consulted gives a quantified breakdown. - What are the chair's full dimensions? Only its height, approximately 2.05 m, is consistently published in the sources consulted; width and depth were not found. - Is the claim that officials misled Parliament about the extent of the 1887 overpainting supported by a primary parliamentary or Abbey record, or only by later tourism and history-blog retellings? No primary citation for this specific claim was located. - Where, and when, did Sir George Gilbert Scott actually describe the chair as 'a magnificent piece of decoration, but sadly mutilated'? No primary, dated source for this widely repeated quotation was found. - Do any of the fragments broken from the Stone of Scone's edges between 1727 and 1821 by souvenir hunters survive anywhere, in a private or institutional collection? No source consulted addresses this. - Is the chair's oak really Baltic in origin, as the royal household's own account states, or English, as several other secondary accounts imply without specifying? No dendrochronological study of the chair's timber was found in the sources consulted, and the two kinds of oak have different implications for what the commission says about 13th-century royal timber sourcing. ## Sources - [1] Westminster Abbey, 'The Coronation Chair'. - [2] Westminster Abbey, 'Coronation Chair', Spotlight on Coronations. - [3] Westminster Abbey, 'Coronation Chair prepared for historic role', Abbey News. - [4] The Past, 'The Coronation Chair: anatomy of a medieval throne'. - [5] Betsy L. Chunko, review of Warwick Rodwell, The Coronation Chair and Stone of Scone: History, Archaeology and Conservation (Oxbow, 2013), The Medieval Review. - [6] Oxbow Books, publisher description of Warwick Rodwell, The Coronation Chair and Stone of Scone: History, Archaeology and Conservation. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Coronation Chair'. Tertiary source, consolidating dates and details on the gilt lions, wartime evacuation and Cromwell's use of the chair; flagged for replacement with primary Abbey or archaeological records. - [8] Wikipedia, 'Walter of Durham'. Tertiary source for the maker's biography, citing Binski's Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry and Rodwell (2013); flagged for replacement with the ODNB entry directly. - [9] Wikipedia, '1950 removal of the Stone of Scone'. Tertiary source for the theft narrative; flagged for replacement with primary press or Abbey records. - [10] University of Glasgow, 'The daring capture of the Stone of Destiny'. - [11] RTE Century Ireland, 'Suffragettes bomb Westminster Abbey'. - [12] Royal Central, 'The history of the Coronation Chair'. - [13] Britain's Best Guides, 'The Coronation Chair'. - [14] ThriftBooks, bibliographic listing for Ian R. Hamilton, No Stone Unturned (London, 1952). This record has not read the memoir itself; claims drawn from it are sourced to this and other secondary descriptions of its contents only. - [15] Unofficial Royalty, 'The Coronation Chair and Stone of Scone'. - [16] Wikimedia Commons, extended metadata for File:Coronation Chair, Westminster Abbey.jpg (licence verification). - [17] Wikimedia Commons, extended metadata for File:Herbert Railton The Coronation Chair and Screen A Brief Account of Westminster Abbey 1894.jpg (licence verification). - [18] Wikimedia Commons, extended metadata for File:St Edward's Chair at the coronation of George V (by Douglas MacPherson), 1911.jpg (licence verification). - [19] Wikimedia Commons, extended metadata for File:View of the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey - geograph.org.uk - 6305103.jpg (licence verification, photographer credit). - [20] 1066.co.nz, 'King Edward's Chair'. A hobbyist history resource, used only for the 100-shillings payment figure to Master Walter; flagged as weak sourcing and recommended for replacement with a published transcription of the wardrobe roll. - [21] The Scotsman, 'Riddle as thieves try to steal fake Stone of Destiny from Scone'. - [22] Scone Palace, 'Stone of Destiny'. - [23] The Royal Household, 'Historic chairs to be reused for the Coronation', royal.uk. - [24] Westminster Abbey, 'A history of coronations'. - [25] Wikipedia, 'English invasion of Scotland (1296)'. Tertiary source, used for the Berwick, Dunbar and Ragman Roll context; flagged for replacement with a scholarly account of the campaign. - [26] Westminster Abbey, 'Cosmati Pavement'. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.