A CHURCH narrowly escaped having to go through rare legal proceedings over a dispute about replacing its pews.

St Mary’s Church in Witney hoped to remove all but six of its 32 pews and install chairs to create a more flexible space as part of a £2m refurbishment.

But the Victorian Society objected because it said the seating was designed by leading Victorian architect George Edmund Street and was of historical importance.

Yesterday, barristers representing the church and the society were due to battle it out at St Mary’s in a consistory court hearing.

But the Victorian Society pulled out of the case on Thursday due to the support the church had gathered, leaving St Mary’s with £7,500 of legal bills.

The church, which originally had 122 pews but now has 32, has accepted a compromise of retaining 10.

Consistory courts are organised by the diocese and arbitrate disagreements over planning because churches are exempt from national planning rules.

Victorian Society churches conservation adviser Tom Ashley said the removal of the pews would be a “great loss” to St Mary’s.

He said: “If you make a proposal to remove the pews you have to justify it properly, and we feel the church has singularly failed to demonstrate this.

“We were not saying you cannot move them, we were saying demonstrate you cannot put the pews anywhere else in the building or they cannot be modified so they can be moved for occasions when you do not need them.

“The reason why in the end we withdrew was, frankly, it seemed quite likely we were not going to win this in a consistory court because the church had mustered a very effective degree of opposition to us.”

The consistory court was set to run for a day at St Mary’ and would have been presided over by the chancellor of the Diocese of Oxford, Worshipful Reverend Rupert Bursell QC.

The church had prepared a 275-page defence.

Team rector the Rev Toby Wright said: “We were very saddened the Victorian Society responded so strongly to begin with.

“We feel we put together a very compelling case to argue the need for the removal of the pews because it hampers the flexibility of space for us to serve the community, which we are called to serve.

“St Mary’s is the largest open space in West Oxfordshire and we want to increase performances, cultural and social events.”

He said in medieval times people would stand in churches, and cathedrals including St Paul’s, Salisbury and Ely all use chairs instead of pews.

He said the Victorian Society had no evidence St Mary’s pews were designed by George Edmund Street.

The project has received the backing of English Heritage, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, Lord Hurd and Prime Minister and Witney MP David Cameron, who wrote to the judge to support the changes.

The first 160 chairs, which are part of a £600,000 second phase of the restoration that also includes fitting under-floor heating, will arrive on Thursday.

Eventually there will be about 300 chairs.

The first phase of the restoration, the repair of the roof, was completed in December 2010 after a £300,000 fundraising effort.