The chairs, which are about 30 years old, also feature a shelf at the rear to store Bibles, hymn books and service papers.

Chancellor Jordan said: “Whilst there is nothing in the existing chairs that is overtly ‘ecclesiastical’, they share a similarity with many other churches into which chairs have been introduced to replace pews and which, over the years, has developed its own sense of a traditional but vaguely modern, church interior. There is a certain sense of familiarity about this.

“Inevitably, some of the chairs are showing their age but are not uniformly beyond their useful life.”

In their place, the modern group of petitioners wanted to replace the chairs with “tubular steel, more contemporary chairs, some with arms, which they propose will be upholstered in what is described as a grey ‘graphite’ colour”.

The metal chairs are each about 1lb lighter, and can be stacked as many as 25 at a time, saving the church about 20 per cent more space.

Chancellor Jordan said that the considerable weight of the old chairs was the “driving factor” behind the parochial church council’s decision to replace them, adding that some of the volunteers involved in moving the chairs for activities are elderly and that “the present task is plainly physical work”.

However, a minority of the congregation – the traditionalists and aesthetes – objected to the introduction of the grey metal chairs, claiming that they would “reduce the church to an appearance of a conference centre or waiting room, draining the interior of colour”.