Orthopedic chairs - Stone chair

A stone chair is simply a chair made from stone. It may be a hard stone or a soft stone like sandstone. Harder stones wear better, but they are more difficult to work and shape.

This might sound odd, however the stone chair is the oldest chair type in existence and man’s original discovery of the chair will have been based upon sitting down on comfortable collections of rocks or weathered stones. From this he will have move on to shape or carve the stone or stone to increase their utility.

In the modern world no one has stone chairs in their home and very few have them in their garden, however stone benches and chairs can be found in parks and municipal areas – even today.

Historically, archaeological finds frequently come across stone chairs and benches and, because of the hard wearing stone from which they were made, they can survive for hundreds or even thousands of years. A stone chair will have been an item of great importance signifying wealth and status in the early days when human civilisation was just starting to eveolve.

Modern stone chairs

Stone chairs are not made on a large scale or manufactured on mass. Even so, it is possible to have a stone chair designed and made to order and stone smiths and sculptors are regularly given briefs to make these chairs for ornamental or aesthetic settings.

The majority of stone chairs now find themselves in parks and, not surprisingly, it is their appearance rather than their comfort levels that result in them being commissioned.

The other type of stone made chair that you may encounter could be a stone bench or chair forming part of a fire pit area. Circular fire pits are often surrounded by a circle or semi-circle of stone bench style seating.

because of a complete lack of shaping, moulding and body-shape contouring, this type of chair is not orthopedic in any way. Even so it can make an attractive and thought provoking addition to a garden, park or public area and, wherever there is a chair, people will always sit down on it.