Great Malvern Priory (12 October 2009)

Diocese: Worcester
Chancellor: Mynors 

Replacing existing chairs, which have reached the end of their useful life, with new oak chairs with padded seat and back in a brick red colour to match the Victorian tiles. The DAC was not in favour of the choice of such a deep colour for all the chairs and recommended also that the oak be limed and lightly waxed to a matt finish. Present proposal is for one third of the chairs to be upholstered in a colour that picks up the pink hue of the stonework, a third in a darker but complementary colour and the remaining with wooden backs and the seats covered in the same two colours in equal numbers. English heritage did not object but preferred all chairs to have wooden backs and that the seat cushions be of one colour to avoid a chequerboard effect. It did however object to the use of the darker colour and to the limed effect on the wood. On the Chancellor’s advice, the petition was amended to allow all the chairs to have padded seats and backs upholstered in the lighter colour and a faculty was issued on condition that no order be placed until a sample of the wood finish has been approved by the court.