DO you think that Victorian dining chairs are smart or ugly? If you like good quality solid Victorian furniture, they are cracking examples of a type.

But the purist, with a great love for 18th century elegance, might think they were a little too heavy and cumbersome to be their ideal choice.

These days it is really a matter of choice and practicality whether you would choose to have items like these in your home.

The chair dates from the early Victorian period.

They are upholstered with deep button backs and stuff-over seats, probably in the original material they were made with, and all set within a leaf-carved frame.

The turned tapering legs with carved upper sections and brass toes and castors are again typical of the William IV or early Victorian period.

Heavy solid dining chairs like this would have been made for a wealthy middle-class home.

You can imagine a good long set of perhaps 12 of these chairs around a Victorian mahogany extending dining table in a rather dark and over-furnished room in a reasonably large house.