Fashion – surely the Church is above such ephemeral self-indulgence? Not at all. Thanks to the less restrained enthusiasts of the Oxford Movement in the 19th century, fashion ruled the roost in Victorian church-going. All the great names in church architecture – Gilbert Scott, Butterfield, Bentley, Pearson, Street et al had to be aware that their customers were people who took crinolines and stove-pipe hats very seriously. Believe it or not there were those in the business of designing and furnishing churches who thought that an ostrich egg was a valuable symbol deserving a place in the ornamentation of a parish church. There was also a point of view that believed in a division of the sexes in a place of worship.
Leading the pack was the Cambridge Camden Society, later to become the Ecclesiological Society. This was founded in 1839 by J.M. Neale and B. Webb and expired in 1868. It favoured a prescriptive view of such matters and dictated fashion much as Milan does nowadays in our more everyday habits. An enjoyable book on the highways and byways of this episode is to be found in Peter Anson’s ‘Fashions in Church Furnishings’ published in 1960. Nobody interested in the furniture appropriate to today’s churches and the outlook of diocesan advisory committees can afford to be without it.
The history of church seating is part of this story. In mediaeval days there was no seating at all. People stood. Those who could not do so would go to the wall, hoping to find a ledge to perch on. In later days a squire attentive to the duties of his station might require a space of his own and his family in the parish church, more like a miniature drawing-room than anything else. As this kind of thing faded, rented pews became customary. I remember as a boy noticing a brass plate indicating that Dr Barnardo had occupied such a pew in the parish church I found myself in. The London diocese has useful material on its website about renewing seating, with examples of where it has been done. Go to ‘Re-ordering church interiors’.
Present fashion favours replacing pews with chairs, even if worshippers who would not dream of being content with ancient furniture and clutter in their homes happily accept pews as part of church life. Should it be asked how many patrons a cinema would attract if it too had pews, the oddity of inherited fashions of church furnishings becomes apparent.
Fashion is beguiling. Nobody enjoys being unfashionable. The danger lies in taking it seriously.
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