Why do milking stools have three legs?

Three legs sit level on uneven ground without rocking, which matters on a byre or yard floor. The legs are splayed and socketed straight into a solid slab seat. Three-legged and tripod forms are named repeatedly in listings on Sellingantiques. A one-legged milking stool has appeared once, flagged as unusual.

What wood are they usually made from?

Elm dominates, named in a fifth of all titles. Oak and ash follow it, with ash often in the legs and elm in the seat. Sycamore, fruitwood, walnut, burr yew, pine and Chinese hardwood each turn up only once or twice. Sycamore has a traditional dairy association as a pale, close-grained wood.

How old are most of these stools?

The dated field runs from 1750 to 1920. Fifty-four of 119 listings are tagged 19th Century, with ten at 18th Century, ten Georgian and eight Victorian. Only 25 listings carry a clean year, so a century label here should be read as an unnarrowed attribution. Some titles hedge further still, with forms like "18th/E19thc" or "Late 19th/Early 20th Century".

Are painted milking stools common?

No. The bulk of the category is bare timber, sold plain. Painted survivors amount to a small handful: three Eastern European stools in original green, yellow and ochre paint that came to market together, a French painted example, and one dairy stool described simply as being in paint.

Can you buy them as pairs or sets?

Single stools are the norm, but multiples do come up. Pairs in oak, elm and pine recur, and one lot offered three together. The largest grouping in the archive is a collection of ten, listed for use with farmhouse tables.

What else gets listed under this heading?

Other low vernacular seats sit alongside the dairy stools: hearth stools, tavern and alehouse stools and nursery stools. Trade stools shade in at the upper end, including cutler's stools, a Birmingham jeweller's stool and a saddle stool. About fourteen stools come to market on Sellingantiques in a year, listed by 43 different dealers over time.