Britain’s country churches must change if they are to survive through the 21st century, according to the leading art historian Sir Roy Strong.
Sir Roy, launching a £10,000 award for the best-adapted village church in tomorrow’s Country Life magazine, says village churches are still among the “immemorial icons” of England but he warns that they are facing “impending cataclysm”.
England’s 10,000 village churches, most of them listed, are under threat as never before and their future can no longer be taken for granted, warns Sir Roy, an inveterate “church crawler”, committed Anglican and former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
“Nestling at the heart of the village, people are instinctively drawn to its weathered stone and lichen, the overgrown churchyard and topsy-turvy muddle of