If you’re planning any alterations to your church building involving seating – from getting rid of half a dozen pews to create a fellowship area to replacing all of the benches in the nave with chairs – then this the guidance is for you. It will help you to put together a proposal that serves your needs. It will also help you to understand how the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) handles this kind of casework and to produce an application that it can support. First step: working out what you want to doThe needs you seek to meet will be specific to your parish, but one point holds true in every situation: it is essential to have the rationale for the proposal clear in your mind. There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ justifications, but it is vital to be sure about what you want to achieve and what its benefit will be to the congregation and wider community. Moreover, the costs involved in reseating all or part of a church are sometimes considerable. You want to be sure that the investment will pay the dividends that you expect. You might have seen new seating in churches elsewhere and be keen to introduce something similar in your own. That’s understandable, but what matters is not what other churches are doing, but what’s right for your parish, your community and your particular building. Use your Statement of Needs to set out your justification. It will help the DAC to advise you and it will ensure that you get a fair hearing from the external consultees, such as Historic England and the Victorian Society. Here are some questions and discussion points to help you put together a strong case.
Second step: thinking about what you’ve gotHistoric seating in churches varies greatly, as does its degree of suitability for modern needs. But it’s rare for there to be no scope for change at all and the DAC is keen to help you ensure that your church building is fit for purpose. Queries about reordering church seating often begin with the words, ‘Will we be allowed…?’ In fact, the answer is rarely a straight ‘Yes, you can’ or ‘No, you can’t’. We don’t expect you to be experts in historic furnishings – the Care of Churches office and DAC are here to help with that – but it’s important to be aware that any proposals for change have to informed by a good understanding of your building. The key thing is to approach us for preliminary advice as soon as you’ve decided to make a change and before you’ve invested any time and money in commissioning design work or purchasing items of furniture. This will help you to put together a good Statement of Significance. Seating is often passed over with barely a mention in descriptions of church buildings unless it is really exceptional, but that doesn’t mean that it lacks historical or architectural significance. Churches in the Diocese of Canterbury have all kinds of seating for worshippers, from medieval stalls through Georgian box pews to Victorian pine benches. It’s important to look at the provenance of the seating – when it appeared, who designed and made it and how it was used. The Care of Churches office can help with sources of information about it. Here are some points you might find it helpful to consider when researching your Statement of Significance:
Third step: working out what new seating to useIf you’ve decided to reseat all or part of your church, then the next thing to do is to work out what sort of furniture you’re going to use to replace the pews. What you want to introduce and how it’ll look inside your building is just as important a consideration for the DAC as the significance of what you’re planning to remove. Here are some of the points to keep in mind and potential costs to take into account when you’re developing your proposal.
Here are some completed reordering schemes in the Diocese of Canterbury to demonstrate what’s possible. Frittenden, St MaryThe south aisle of this church was cleared of pews as part of a major reordering project. Stone paving has been introduced where the pew platforms were removed. The project also involved subdividing what had formerly been an organ chamber on the south side of the chancel (the organ was moved to a new location) and creating a kitchen on the ground floor. This has a serving hatch that opens into the south aisle. Refreshments can be served here, and the aisle can be set up with café-style seating. There is a chair store against the west wall with more seating that can be brought out when additional capacity is required. The pews in the nave form part of a high quality scheme of furnishings dating from a major rebuilding in the 1840s. They have been left intact, as have the benches in the chancel. Hartlip, St Michael and All AngelsA new extension was built onto the north side of this church to house a toilet. The western end of the nave (i.e. the part furthest from the chancel) was cleared of pews and a floor of red and blue tiles laid. A kitchenette was installed at the west end of the south aisle. Here, the flexible space is shown seated with chairs arranged in rows, but they could all be removed to clear the space if need be. The remainder of the seating - which again forms part of a high quality scheme of furnishings, this time from the 1860s – has been left intact. Monkton, St Mary MagdaleneIt always pays to look at whether it’s possible to house new facilities within a church building, since that avoids the need for an extension. It’s usually cheaper and it also avoids the need to obtain planning permission. Here, that was done by creating a mezzanine floor at the west end of the nave with a toilet and kitchen enclosed beneath. Pews were removed and the gaps between the platforms filled in. An engineered timber floor was then laid over the top. Willesborough, St MaryAll the seating in the nave was removed when this church was reordered. The central tiled passage aisle was retained, but the rest of the floor surface was renewed. All the new facilities, such as the kitchen and toilet, were housed at the west end. There are cupboards along the north wall where the chairs can be stored on occasions when the interior needs to be cleared, such as is shown here. This photograph conveys just what a different impact the interior of a church makes when seen without seating. The chancel fittings were left intact and a new dais provided for a nave altar. Wye, St Martin and St GregoryThe fixed pews were removed from the nave of this church and the pew platforms were replaced with stone paving. The new seating took the form of benches by Luke Hughes. They have all the advantages of pews but are not fixed and can be stacked. The manufacturer provides trolleys to insert under each end to make them easier to move around, but, given their weight, this is still a job for two people. Note the padded runners on the seats to make them more comfortable. Among other things, the reordering project included the provision of a ramp down from the main door (the floor of the church is slightly below road level) and the provision of audio-visual equipment, discreetly tucked away when not in use. This allows the church to accommodate a wide variety of different functions outside service times. |