With Richard Dawkins shredding God in all available media, the Pope under fire for the sins of his fathers, and Anglicans in their usual tiswas over gay priests and female bishops, this might not seem like the best time to campaign for churches. But there’s a difference between the Church and the church. Even those who loathe the former might have a soft spot for the venerable stone pile in the centre of their town.
For a start, it is probably the oldest building in the area. It will be a repository of ancestral records, and indeed of the actual ancestors. It is likely to have fine architecture (almost half of Britain’s Grade I buildings are churches; 13,000 of them) and windows and carvings of