News

Students create eye-catching pews for Church Porch

Many thanks to the students from Buckinghamshire New University, who answered a call to restore one 6ft-long pew and build a second one  to sit in the porch. Students from the University’s BA (Hons) Furniture: Conservation, Restoration and Decorative Arts course carried out the work. The students restored one of the pine pews, which dates back to 1860, and made the new one using wood from three much longer pews no longer needed by the church and given to the University. The work was carried out by first-year students Amber Bailey, Dorothy Rayner, Ann Newbold, and Jeff Day, with help from course leader Paul Tear MBE.   Rev David Williams said the pews provided a ‘fantastic entrance to the church’. He added: “We are getting more and more people coming into the church and this is the first thing they see which creates a really fantastic introduction. Even when the church is closed people will still be able to come and sit on the pews. We greatly appreciate the students’ help.” Dorothy, who is originally from Coleford, in Gloucestershire, said the students were all ‘extremely proud’ of the work. She said: “I only started the course a few months ago so to be working on something like this has been a great experience. It was quite daunting at first but I’m pleased the church is happy with the result, it should help to provide pleasant surroundings for visitors to St Mary’s Church.”

The Bishop's Chair

To celebrate the renewal of St Mary's Church Denys and Brenda Williams have restored the Bishop's Chair. Denys has re-polished the oak chair, and Brenda has made a beautiful new cushion for it. Denys has done some research into the origins of the chair and he writes as follows:

In the Chancel of St Mary’s there are a number of old wooden furnishings.  Before Christmas I spent some time re-polishing these wonderful items and became fascinated by what we know as the Bishop’s Chair.  This is a lovely piece of oak furniture from the Victorian era.  Sadly, I have not been able to find out any more specific details of our chair but was intrigued to find out that it is, in fact, called a Glastonbury chair.  Our chair has the following lettering carved into the arms and back:
‘Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might’.
The lettering continues Ecclesis IXV.10 (or as we know it Ecclesiastes)

A Glastonbury chair is the 19th century term for an earlier wooden chair, usually of oak, possibly based on a chair made for Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, England. The Glastonbury chair was known to exist since the Early Middle Ages, but seems to have disappeared from use in part of the Later Middle Ages; it re-emerged in use in Italy by the 15th century AD.
It was made originally in Britain from a description brought back from Rome in 1504 by Abbot Richard Beere to Glastonbury Abbey, and was produced for or by John Arthur Thorne, a monk who was the treasurer at the abbey. Arthur perished on Glastonbury Tor in 1539, hung, drawn and quartered alongside his master, Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, during the dissolution of the monasteries. The Abbot sat on a Glastonbury chair during his trial at Bishop's Palace, Wells, where one of the two original surviving examples can still be seen.
Let us hope that no such fate will befall anyone who sits in our ‘Glastonbury Chair’!

Next time you are in St Mary’s take a moment to view the Chair, as it has recently been adorned with a wonderful embroidered quilt cushion with a modern depiction of Whiteleaf Cross made by Brenda Williams. 

If you have any further information on our chair and how it came to St Mary’s I would be interested to know. 

Denys Williams