No visit to a rural village is complete without exploring the church, especially when these old places frequently date back to Norman times and beyond. Each one of them is not only a place of worship that has stood at the heart of its community for generations, it is also a time capsule crammed with the social history of the area, its art and artists, and memories of the great, the good and the lowly.

Sadly, the virus and the lockdown has closed the doors of our churches and, given that new ways have had to be found for the Church to reach out to its parishioners, we are concerned that many of the smaller, less well-known, well-attended or well-funded places may never reopen their doors. Covid will cast a long shadow…

Over the past years, Stuart and I have visited and documented hundreds of sacred sites and places of…