Medieval building is the latest to strip out hand-crafted seating as churches strive to adapt to 21st-century needs

Bath’s medieval abbey will ring to the sounds of hammers and drills on Monday as work begins on removing its choir stalls. The hand-carved corporation stalls, near the high altar, were taken away a fortnight ago, and early next year the remainder of the greatly admired Victorian pews will also go. These pews, designed by architect Sir George Gilbert Scott in the mid-19th century, will be taken to a disused aircraft hangar for storage before being sold.

The removal of the pews, after a long and expensive legal battle, will create a vast open space under the abbey’s spectacular fan vaulting. Supporters of the project say this will allow the abbey to host community events, concerts, exhibitions and even formal dinners, and allow the restoration of ancient ledger stones in the floor, hidden for 150 years. Critics say the pews’ removal will drastically harm the significance of the grade I-listed abbey, and much fine craftsmanship and architectural heritage will be lost.

The bitter dispute over Bath Abbey’s pews is far from unique. Pews have been stripped from churches all over the country in recent years, to the dismay of conservationists and traditionalists. The idea is enthusiastically endorsed, however, by those who say such buildings must meet 21st-century needs.

Bath Abbey’s £19.3m Footprint project, which will open up spaces, create a learning centre and a song school, and install a modern kitchen, lavatories and underfloor heating fuelled by Bath’s natural hot springs, involves the permanent removal of most of its pews.

In the nave, about 100 pews will be replaced with Slovenian-made lightweight stackable and linkable chairs, costing £200 each. “The pews are jolly uncomfortable, especially during a two-hour concert,” said Charles Curnock, Footprint’s project director. “And there’s no disabled access. People in wheelchairs have to sit in a corner or at the back.”

The removal of the pews will also allow for the crumbling floor of the abbey to be properly repaired, and ledger stones restored. Between 1618 and 1845, records show 8,499 bodies were buried under the abbey. These have shrunk and shifted over time, creating voids and dips in the floor.

“We could have carried on bodging, but we wanted to do a proper job, one that will hopefully be good for another couple of hundred years,” said Curnock.

Frank Mowat, the abbey’s executive director, said: “Cathedrals and abbeys are for cities and local communities. Historically, events were held in an open space here. We want to go back to our original purpose, but also make ourselves fit for future purpose.”

A policy for hiring out the abbey had yet to be drawn up, but would be sensitive, he added. Having a flexible, rentable space could significantly boost the abbey’s income, much of which now comes from visitor donations. The pews will sell for perhaps £400 each, making barely a dent in its £30,000 weekly operating costs.

Christopher Costelloe of the Victorian Society, which challenged the abbey’s plans, said the legal case had been “one of the most important we’ve fought for years and of course we were very disappointed by the outcome”. The ruling was made by the chancellor of the Bath and Wells diocese. This person “has a close involvement with the abbey and is appointed by the bishop,” he added. “It does not give the appearance of justice.”

In a separate case, an ecclesiastical court ruled last week that the unauthorised removal of seven pews from the 14th-century Our Lady of Bloxham church in Oxfordshire – once called “one of the grandest in the country” by architecture scholar Sir Nikolaus Pevsner – had harmed its historical significance. But it acknowledged that their removal “was necessary in order to serve the wider community”.

A grade II-listed church in Oldham recently won approval for a plan to remove its pews in order to meet community needs in an area of significant deprivation. St Thomas Werneth, which holds two services a week, wants to host English-language classes and a job club. Other churches have removed traditional pews to make room for parent-and-toddler groups, debt clinics, food banks and social activities.

“Pews remain an important feature of many churches and are often integral to their historic character,” said Luke March of the National Churches Trust. “However, keeping churches well used for community activities and worship can require flexible seating arrangements. It’s always important that the history, and significance, of the pews in a church is understood before changes are planned, and the most important retained.”

The Victorian Society acknowledged that the removal of Scott’s pews will make Bath Abbey’s space more flexible. But Costelloe said: “You have to balance that against our heritage. Now this fine craftsmanship will be lost to the public for ever.”

In medieval times, most churches had no furniture: congregations stood to worship, with only the elderly and infirm sitting on stone benches at the perimeter (hence the expression “the weak go to the wall”).

After the Reformation, as sermons became commonplace and sometimes lengthy, bench seating began to be introduced. Enclosed “box pews”, some with doors, curtains, even fireplaces, were often paid for by landowners and families of high social standing.

In the 19th century, the Incorporated Church Building Society – which celebrates its bicentenary this year – launched a massive church expansion programme in response to a growing population and urbanisation.

The vast majority of the extra 2.4 million pew spaces it created could be sat in for free. Neat lines of forward-facing wooden pews, providing a sense of order, calm and solidity, were the norm right through until the end of the 20th century. But few were as fancy as the ornately carved benches installed in Bath Abbey between 1859 and 1874, as part of Sir George Gilbert Scott’s restoration of the church.

St Peter’s, Sark, is the last church in the British Isles to still have pews rented by local landowners and gentry. The £1,000 cost of building the church in the early 19th century was partly met by 40 families on the tiny island, who subscribed for pews that were attached to their tenements in perpetuity. The rent has been unchanged for many decades and now provides an income of about £5 a year.