Pints in the pews

摘要

Bingley, a small town in West Yorkshire, is a pleasant but largely unremarkable place. It has just become a bit less remarkable. For a century, two Victorian churches, built to keep the workforce of the textile mills on the straight and narrow, rang out Bingley's status across the Aire Valley. So local hackles rose when one, an important work by the noted architect Norman Shaw, was demolished 25 years ago. And they rose further in 1998, when the town's Methodists voted to knock down the other to make way for a modern chapel and twelve homes. A pressure group was formed. Its chairman, Ewen Godfrey, called the proposed chapel "microscopic" and "ugly". Conservation experts weighed in. Matthew Saunders, the secretary of the Ancient Monuments Society, voiced his "despair and exasperation" at the threat to a handsome listed building. The council sided with the congregation, and the wreckers moved in this month. Mr Godfrey may not feel.better when he hears that parts of the old church have been saved: the pews are being sold to California, the gargoyles to Australia and the stained glass to Japan.