The pews are being removed to make way for new radiators

Thirty-two pews from St Catherine's Church in Pontypridd are being offered for sale for �100 each.

The money raised will help pay for a �30,000 heating system which will replace the existing appliances.

The pews are being taken out from the side aisles in order for Victorian-style radiators to be put in.

The Reverend Marcus Green said that selling the pews individually was a way of keeping some of Pontypridd's history in the area.

There has been an incredible amount of interest in them The Reverend Marcus Green

"It would have been easy to sell them all to a timber merchant, but we wanted to give people the chance to have a bit of Ponty history," he said.

"There has been an incredible amount of interest in them too."

"The last heating system we had put in was in 1969, and that was a long time ago," said the clergyman.

The 7ft-long pews, which can sit four people, are being sold to help raise �3,200 towards the overall cost of installing the heating system.

"They are already proving very popular," said Mr Green.

"I had one woman on the telephone asking me how long the pews were because she had just bought a 7ft table and wanted some pews to be used as the seating around it."

"We hope to have the system in place by the middle of October," he added.