The Cotswold School is the name given to a group of Arts and Crafts designers and furniture makers who settled in the Cotswolds of Gloucestershire from the 1890s, most notably Ernest Gimson and the brothers Sidney and Ernest Barnsley. Rejecting industrial production, they set up workshops dedicated to honest construction, local timbers and traditional country techniques, first at Pinbury and later at Sapperton.
Their furniture is characterised by simple, robust forms in oak, walnut and other English woods, with visible joints, chamfered edges, and decoration derived from the construction itself, such as exposed dovetails and wooden pegs. Gimson's workshop at Daneway, with the Dutch-born cabinetmaker Peter Waals as foreman, produced some of the finest English furniture of the period. The tradition continued through Waals, Edward Barnsley and others, and influenced Gordon Russell, whose firm began at Broadway in Worcestershire. Pieces with a secure attribution to Gimson, the Barnsleys or Waals command strong prices, and collectors pay close attention to timber selection, the quality of hand finishing and documentary evidence such as drawings or workshop records. The school's ideals still shape British studio furniture making today.
