BENJAMIN DISRAELI is well known for his liking for the flamboyant (with the exception, perhaps, of primroses, of which he was fond); so, when he donated a chair to St Mary and All Saints, in Beaconsfield, Oxford diocese, it was bound to be over the top. It is thought that he gave it to mark his elevation to the peerage as the first Earl of Beaconsfield in 1879, only a couple of years before his death.

Through the years its gilding and leather upholstery deteriorated, but now it has been meticulously restored by a 23-year-old student in her final year at Buckinghamshire New University. Dorothy Rayner, in the Furniture: Conservation, Restoration, and Decorative Arts department, spent 70 hours cleaning the gilt-work of the chair with (uncounted) cotton buds; and a further 40 hours regilding it.

She was helped by an Associate Lecturer, Ernest Riall, who spent a futher 200 hours on the leather-conservation work, which required removing the leather from the chair frame, and putting it on another frame so that it would retain its shape. When it was finished, the chair was on display at the Bucks End of Year Show, where the Team Rector, the Revd Jeremy Brooks, saw it, and "could not believe the difference. Dorothy and Ernest have done an amazing job in making the chair shine again."

The cost of the restoration - about £4000 - has been borne by the Friends of St Mary's, and the chair has now been returned to the church. But at the church they are wondering whether it should be lent on a long-term basis "to a more suitable home, where its Disraeli connections can be cherished, or where it can be viewed by more people".