Are you looking for an unusual vintage feature for your home, bar, café or business? Perhaps a genuine Victorian cathedral pew could be just the object you’re after.

Newcastle Cathedral has announced that it’s going to clear out and sell off its pews as part of a £6-million renovation project.

35 exquisitely carved oak benches are to be removed from the city’s St Nicholas Cathedral. They will be replaced with more flexible seating that will be better suited to concerts and events.

The pews – which those in charge of the renovation have suggested could be used as garden furniture or in hotels and restaurants – will be on offer from £450 each.

The benches will be sold on a first-come-first-serve basis and anyone interested in acquiring one should get in touch with the cathedral.

It is hoped that the sale of the pews will raise between £15,000 and £20,000.

The manager of the renovation project, Lindy Gilliland, said, “Christmas is the cathedral’s busiest time so we will only have a short period to take them out before work starts in mid-January.”

“The pews are mid-Victorian era, from approximately 1882, when the parish church became a cathedral, and are very solid with beautiful decorative carving at the ends.”

“It’s a shame to lose them, but we will keep six decorative ends as a record as well as documentary photos.”

The pews are to be replaced with simple benches and chairs, but the pews in the cathedral’s choir will not be removed.

Other cathedrals around the country have also been selling off fixtures, fittings, furniture and decorative pieces. Durham Cathedral recently made £125,000 by auctioning bits of masonry and stone carvings.

The renovation of Newcastle Cathedral will also include the restoration of the floor in the nave and alterations to public spaces outside the cathedral building. To help meet the costs, the cathedral secured lottery funding earlier in the year.

(Featured image courtesy of Newcastle Libraries from Flickr Creative Commons)


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