Welsh Dressers
Dressers developed everywhere in Britain in the 18th Century, but while English versions were often plain pine examples, confined to the kitchen and servant quarters, the Welsh dresser, occupying pride of place in the one living room and serving as kitchen cupboard, workboard and plate display, was often more ornate, and carefully preserved through generations.
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The North Welsh dresser, or dresel, had cupboards and drawers below and a solid boarded back to the rack above. W14 |
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This version shows the development from the Cwpwrdd Tridarn. The upper tier of cupboards has been reduced to two small cupboards set within a rack of display shelves. W15 |
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This version has a T-shape arrangement of drawers in the base, with two flanking cupboards W16 |
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The South Wales dresser, or Seld, was much lighter, beginning as a simple dressing board with an open wall rack above it. These dressers could be very ornate, with fretwork aprons and friezes, but the back of the shelves was usually unboarded, and the bases, supported on slender legs, had drawers and a pot board instead of cupboards. W20 |
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This is another southern dresser, supplemented with a row of small spice drawers at the base of the plate rack. W19 |
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In Mid Wales a hybrid variety was developed, with the more massive construction of the northern dresel and the open potboard of the southern seld.. W18 |
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Another Mid Wales version, retaining the pot board but with an extra tier of drawers to either side.. W17 |