These wooden chairs are currently used by the newly wedded couple during the signing of the register. From time to time they are used by the bishop or archdeacon when they attend a service. They were refurbished in 2012.
This style of chair, the Glastonbury chair, is simple in construction but heavy and unwieldy. This chair does not fold although it might look as if it might.
Apparently this style was made originally in England from a description brought back from Rome in 1504 by Abbot Richard Beere to Glastonbury Abbey. The last maker of this style of chair, in the twenthieth century, was Gordon Browning from Glastonbury. He was employed in the Second World War making aircraft frames in Bristol, possibly at Newman’s in Yate. Source: Wikipedia.