Pews

In 2024, we’ll be providing a more diverse space for services and events with the arrival of new chairs in the Nave. We are one of the last Church of England cathedrals to replace our pews with chairs and the flexibility will allow us to provide more variety of programming for our community.

The pews will be removed at the end of February and we will have six-seater and eight-seater pews available for purchase ‘as is’. Prices will start from £350 and pews will be offered for collection only. If you’re interested in a pew before refurbishment, please email catherinerayson@stedscathedral.org.

Because some of the larger pews will likely be too big for the average family home, and we want to be able to offer a piece of history to as many as possible and embody the re-use, recycle ethos, we’re teaming up with Rough Stuff, who many may know from the annual Christmas Market, to repurpose some of the larger pews into smaller seats (see example image below) and other items. Each new pew or piece will be branded to show its provenance. Excess wood will be made into chopping boards, coat racks and coasters with prices from £10.00, making it affordable for all.

If you would like to order an item made from a pew, please visit the website of our partner, Rough Stuff, here: roughstuffoak.co.uk/pews.

Rough Stuff are based in Hemel Hempstead and specialise in creating new, useful items from oak furniture that is no longer fit for use or sought after. They work with both ex-prisoners and those still in prison (with workshops inside their partner prisons) to up skill workers, via HACRO – The Hertfordshire Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders. They also help with the social rehabilitation of ex-offenders with assisting the set-up of their own businesses.

The Victorians retrofitted churches and cathedrals with pews that suited the society at the time, and now it’s time for us to do the same. Both Gilbert Scott and Dykes Bower, great visionaries of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, had chairs in the restoration plans, which means that in 2024 we are completing a vision first created in the 1860s.