Baking bad in Bath

The benches are to be ripped from Bath Abbey to make room for such events as the Great Bath Bake Sale. Whether baked goods should be the prime object of veneration in church is one question, but the wooden seating to be jettisoned is no ordinary set of Victorian pews. It was part of Sir Gilbert Scott’s careful refurbishment of the Grade I-listed building. He used woodworkers he valued, such as Farmer and Brindley, in the Abbey, where the bench-ends are fashioned like those of medieval times. For it is an error to think that no one sat on benches in church in the Middle Ages. The Church of England is exempt from planning laws on the presumption that its art advisers and ecclesiastical courts will preserve its unequalled heritage. To tear out fine furniture made especially for Bath Abbey is a betrayal of trust.