A team of historians are appealing for the public’s help to solve a puzzle about church pews.
The box pews at Christ Church, a Grade II* listed building on Bridge Street, cover almost the whole of the ground floor and gallery.
But members of the Roe-naissance Project – a community group working to find a new life for the church – reckon the pews weren’t always in the same position, and want to know more about the original layout.
Box pews are straight backed with doors and were historically designed so families could sit together.
However some of the present pews block a door believed to be the original main entrance.
With no architect plans or drawings of the interior, historians have been left scratching their heads as to why it was blocked off.
Former planner, John Knight, who has been researching the history with fellow enthusiast Alan Brant, hopes residents with an interest in local history may have the answer.
He said: “It’s been fascinating sifting through the records and we’ve discovered how pews were rented to pay the minister’s salary, found bills for work done in the church and know more about removal of pews in the 20th century, but we haven’t found any records of the additions.
Was it just too draughty having a door on the north side? And if there was an opening between the pews, how far across did the aisle come for funeral corteges to process in? We’d love to know to help tell the story of the building and the families who worshiped here.”
He added: “Families who once went to the church might just have old papers lingering in the loft, architecture enthusiasts might fancy testing their detective skills or there may be experts in Georgian architecture in the town. We’d love to hear from them.”
The original main entrance – the north door – was approached by the ‘Long Carry’, a path from Great King Street which runs through what was the graveyard. The quality of the workmanship means it is difficult to spot the joins created during the reorganisation.
Christ Church was built by entrepreneur and industrialist Charles Roe in 1775. If you can help, contact theRoenaissance
Project@gmail.com, visit the facebook page or tweet @christchurchmac.
