C O N T E X T 1 2 4 : M A Y 2 0 1 2 47 boat, is not clear. The tendency to intellectualise the improbable is best avoided. The cover image also presents a debatable contextual response – and is not even mentioned in the text. The one-off nature of the seven case studies – with notable omissions of office or housing developments – serves to confirm that although the design agenda has had a high profile among the professions, government agencies and in the media, it has had marginal impact on the generality of interventions in the historic environment. New Design in Historic Settings has attempted, within a very tight format, to communicate to too wide an audience: it partially dumbs down even to lay readers, and it has inadequate direction and bibliography for professionals. The cited international documents offer conflicting messages, and the omitted Scottish Borders Council’s 2010 Placemaking and Design supplementary planning guidance (to give just one example) provides a far more rigorous methodology, which has already achieved positive results at the everyday Scottish burgh and rural scale. Dennis Rodwell, architect-planner, consultant in cultural heritage and sustainable urban development Sitting comfortably Pews, Benches and Chairs Edited by Trevor Cooper and Sarah Brown,The Ecclesiological Society, 2011, 500 pp, b&w illustrations, ISBN 978 0 946823 17 8, £35 inc. postage from Shaun Tyas Publishing, 1 High Street, Donington, Lincolnshire PE11 4TA This eagerly awaited special volume published by the Ecclesiological Society is both a wonderful resource and a thrilling read. It is timely, as so many of our congregations are thinking about changes to their seating. As the book explains, such changes have taken place previously: the general introduction of pews in perhaps the late 14th century; their replacement or adaptation to enclosed or box pews in the 17th and 18th centuries; and the reforms of the 19th century, with a return to the medieval form of bench. We currently face the challenge of managing the re-ordering our church buildings to adapt to changing liturgies and to provide space for community activities. Both are often needed to enable these buildings to remain in use, and to develop forms of worship to engage current and future generations. As we contemplate wholesale or partial removal of pews it is important, as with any alterations to historic places, to understand what we have. This new volume goes a long way to help providing insights into many types of seating. PS Barnwell, writing about pre-Reformation seating, explains how little is known and how hard it can be to date surviving examples of seating. Jerry Sampson, in an authoritative article on seating in Somerset, shows that close examination can reveal significant medieval survivals in groups of pews thought to be 19th century. Both chapters invite further study, perhaps on a county-by-county basis. Social history can be well documented. One of the most fascinating chapters, by Christopher Marsh, describes disputes in the Diocese of Ely in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, arising out of the onerous task given to church wardens to allocate pews in their churches by status. A pew plan for Sutton in the Isle ‘sets society on paper’ as pews were to be allocated according to the parishioners ‘qualities and worthe’. The poor had communal seats at the back of the church or under the tower; men and women were seated separately. The elderly could sit near the front and children, while sitting separately from the parents, were also seated according to rank. A lapse in morality could result in reallocation of a seat: Richard Roberts of Chatteris went to the consistory court to complain that he had been moved from a seat ‘anciently belonging to his house’ for being ‘brawling and contentious’. A reputation for non-conformity could also result in someone being placed at the back of the church. Further short studies on postReformation seating in Devon, Dorset and Gloucestershire are illuminating but again illustrate how much more there is to be discovered through careful study. The rise of the Cambridge Camden Society and its hatred of box pews and galleries is discussed in detail by Christopher Webster. The resulting 19th century changes were considerable: seats were to face the altar, and to be designed to encourage kneeling, social divisiveness was discouraged and pews became rent free. The Incorporated Church Building Society gave grants for church building and repair in proportion to the number of seats provided, giving rise by the 1860s to the complaint that churches had become crammed full of pews. Trevor Cooper reports a correspondence in The Ecclesiologist from 1854 in which the merits of pews, moveable benches and chairs were discussed. The requisites for a perfect system of seating are listed as: conformity of design with the structure; non-obtrusive with respect to the coup d’œil of the interior; sufficiently comfortable without luxury; economy of space (the balance between providing adequate numbers of seats with keeping sufficient open space in the nave); and the ability to move the seats to create more open space for special occasions. The same arguments are heard over and over again today in faculty applications for the removal of pews. An overview of 19th century seating again demonstrates interesting regional variations and includes a useful chapter on the pew designs of Gilbert Scott. It demonstrates fascinatingly how very many churches were provided with seats from catalogues produced by a small number of suppliers, using designs which continued to be available well into the 20th century. The last section of this book looks forward. It discusses changes to liturgy and new types of seating, and provides case studies and a guide to assessing significance. It all makes a very important volume, which will encourage more study of the subject. We are undoubtedly going to lose much Victorian seating from our churches. This book will be an invaluable guide for congregations, architects and those who advise on change in churches. It is important that we look very carefully to understand what we have before we propose change and face the challenge of adding furniture and fittings of the highest quality to these historic interiors. Jane Kennedy, Purcell Miller Tritton
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