Irish Settle
A Settle is a wooden bench, usually with arms and a high back, long enough to accommodate three or four sitters.
Its high back was a protection from the draughts of medieval buildings, protection which was sometimes increased by the addition of winged ends or a wooden canopy. It was most frequently placed near the fire in the common sitting-room.
Often still to be found in its original environment - the farmhouse kitchen or the manorial hail. Its vogue did not long outlast the first half of the 18th century, to which period most of the existing specimens belong.
This incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
