Gone Medieval - How To Save Medieval Churches

Episode Date: September 4, 2021

With Christianity dominating Europe, the Church became one of the most powerful institutions in Britain during the Medieval period and its places of worship played a crucial role in the focal points of people's lives, from birth to death. But as populations declined in areas within the UK, so did the number of attendees, leaving several churches neglected. This is where 'The Friends of Friendless Churches' charity comes into importance. Formed in 1957, this organisation helps to preserve these sites. In this episode, Matt is joined by Rachel Morley, director of 'the Friends', to discuss some of the buildings they care for and their architectural significance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world,

to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval from History Hit. I'm Matt Lewis. If you're anything like me and you drive through the countryside wondering how some of these beautiful chapels and churches that dot the countryside are still surviving in the UK and are still in a good state of repair, then we've got the answer for you today. Many are unused, the communities they once served long since gone, yet the buildings stand the test of time. A big part of the reason why some of these buildings are so well looked after is an organisation called Friends of Friendless Churches.

And I'm delighted to be joined today by Rachel Morley to talk about some of the buildings and artefacts that they care for. Thank you very much for joining us, Rachel. Thank you, Matt. Thank you for having me. It's great to have you here. So to start us off, can you tell us a little bit about the Friends of Friendless Churches? How did the organisation start?

What sort of thing do you do? Sure, yeah. So we were formed in 1957. We'll be 65 next year, which is very exciting for us. As long as you're not ready to retire. No, no, I'm not 65. I haven't been here since the beginning. But we were formed predominantly by a man called Iver, Bulmer Thomas, and he was a Welshman.

I mean, he was an amazing person. And for me, somebody that people should know more of. He was the editor of, like, The Times, the New Statement. He was a politician. He had a kind of thriving political career with all three political parties. Moved around a lot. He almost would have been in the Olympics if war hadn't broke out. He was a mathematician.

He wrote lots of books. And in his spare time, he saved him. churches. So genuine polymath. Totally, yeah, like the definition of it. And in 1957, he got together lots of his friends. People like John Betchman, T.S. Eliot, Roy Jenkins, John Somerson, you know, just people who have on to beat die. Just your casual acquaintances. Yeah, exactly. And they gathered and they sat down in a meeting room in the House of Commons and they thought, you know, we really need to do something about the state of churches in England. And they emerged from that meeting and they called themselves a group. They were going to be the friends of friendless churches.

and they were going to start campaigning for better futures for places of worship. And I guess the reason why is because at that time, a lot of churches were in pretty bad state of repair, a lot were closing, and they were being demolished. Kind of a lot were being demolished. And what Iver and his friends felt was that, you know, they were being demolished because there wasn't a pastoral need for them. There wasn't a worship need for them anymore.

But he wanted to say, well, actually, there may not be a worship need, but actually they're so important architecturally, historically, culturally, and there must be an alternative way to protect them. That's fantastic. So why were some of these churches falling into neglect? Why were they at risk? Now, that's a big question, really. I think the kind of the story of the decline that we're seeing today, to my mind, it goes back centuries.

And it all started kind of a long time ago. But I guess, first of all, churches, they kind of always went in and out of fashion. You know, people came and went, there was money, there wasn't money, you know. It's not like they were kind of always on the up from their kind of foundation. But for me, kind of the first point is deserted medieval villages. There's about 3,000 of them in England. And a lot of our churches are in deserted medieval villages. So they're, you know, important medieval churches.

But nobody's been around for centuries. Like, you know, probably been about five people around that church for a long, long time. And just kind of by the 20th century, mid-20th century, it's not the same people since the 1400s or whatever. But those people are kind of just given up. So I think a good example of that, just to give an anecdote, would be, we have a gorgeous, it's the most beautiful little church. It's St. Mary Magdalens, Caldecott and Hertfordshire.

And it's so beautiful, it's so regal, it's just a lovely little thing. But it is in a deserted medieval village. And the population declined really heavily because of the black deaths. You know, there's kind of desertion, depopulation, harvest failure, you know, all of those things. But we know that by the mid-15th century, there was no subsidy paid in that village. So there was less than five households. So by 1428, there were only five people left. and now there's one.

But it's really interesting because the church is so beautiful, you know, it's open every day and people come from miles to visit it. So that's very interesting, I think. So that's the first thing, which is black death, desert and medieval villages. But to bring us kind of into where we are at the moment, I think that decline started a couple of centuries ago and it's been a slow unraveling. So by the end of the 18th century, you know, nonconformism was on the rise. And a lot of kind of Anglican congregants were becoming Methodists, Baptists,

congregationalists, so it kind of started to unravel then. I think what's really interesting is in the beginning of the 19th century, villages migrated, there were railways introduced, and there was a big move to city centres, really, and there was an abandonment of rural areas and rural churches really, and I think there's a stash that I think is really statistic, which is really interesting, which is in 1801, 20% of the population lived in cities, but by 1901, that was 75%. So in 100 years, that's a huge change to kind of the countryside and who was inhabiting it. And that's still evident today because a fifth of all churches in England are where you'll find only 0.3% of the population. So there's not a lot of people around a lot of churches.

Yeah, it's an incredible statistic, isn't it, to think that these buildings were just left. You know, the population moved to where the work was, I guess. Communities are bypassed by the railways and things like that. And these buildings were just left and they went somewhere else to work. worship, presumably, but the worship was where the people were, so, you know, people, no need for worship, no need for the church. Exactly. And I think, you know, it is the 19th century that movement to where we are today, I think it starts happening because kind of a watershed moment came in 1868 because up until then churches were supported by tithes. So, you know,

10% of all produce or whatever, or, you know, in kind or cash went to supporting the church, the Paris and whatever. In 1868, that was abolished and it became a voluntary contribution. So it was no longer compulsory. So, you know, why would you pay it? We all know if something kind of voluntary, you know, you kind of, you know. And if you're not using the church, then you're not going to be willing to pay it and there's less people. But I think what's really interesting as well is a lot of people think that like the 19th century was the great age of church going. I mean, it was a great age of church building because there were thousands that were rebuilt, built for the first time, restored.

And more men than since the middle ages took holy orders. There's a lot of interest in churches. But actually, there were lots of people taking holy orders. There were lots of churches being built, but it didn't increase bums on seats, basically. And it still started to decline. And then I think 20th century rise of secularism. And now here we are, you know, we have ageing, dwindling congregations. On an average Sunday, less than 700,000 people attend church, which is not very much at all.

The buildings are expensive. You have to pay a parish share. You have to keep up an ancient building. There's very little grants around at the moment. And I think, you know, that makes a difficult. for people, but also just kind of bring it right up to the current day and why there's a worry really is because, well, for me, is that COVID brought in online services, which is great. But, you know, if you can get your service online, then do you really want to be going to a cold,

difficult, ancient church on a Sunday, you know, will lots of people just think that they get what they need online and they don't need the building anymore? So that's a bit of a worry. There's an aspect of the pandemic and the move to online that I hadn't really considered at all, that could cause a serious problem for churches and old buildings. Yeah, you know, it almost definitely will. And the Church of England itself has acknowledged that. And they do think that, you know, it's great that they're reaching loads of people and people all over the world. But for the actual buildings, they're kind of thinking, well, do we really need them, you know, if we're able to do our ministry online. So for me, it's a worry. Yeah. That's an unexpected new threat, I think, from the pandemic, isn't it? After all of the problems that it has caused, this isn't one I'd noticed, to be honest. Yeah. Well, you know, it's really interesting because, you know, on church Twitter that I'm. kind of an active member of, there are lots of people that kind of go and visit churches and

they'll say, you know, this church was open before COVID and now it's locked. And there seemed to be quite a lot like that. The doors used to be open just to regular visitors and now they're shut. I guess what we're kind of concerned about is that this kind of deluge of closures has kind of been threatening kind of all the time and could COVID be the thing that actually breaks the tips it over the edge. Yeah, exactly. It would be a shame if it was. So everybody get out there and visit some churches, please. Yes, please. Why do the friends of friendless churches feel it's important to preserve these sites of worship? That's a big question.

I'm full of big questions. We've been talking about decline, and decline is real, and there are some worrying kind of figures that I've told you about there. But I think it is important to note that lots of people and more people than appear on the kind of electoral role do appreciate their church, they admire it,

they don't have an affection for it. So I think people do value them, even if they're not going on a regular Sunday. So I think that is important just to kind of put out their first. First of all, for me, a parish church isn't like a castle or a pub because it is built by its congregation, for the most part. The really old ones, at least. And it's the spiritual investment of generations, but not only the spiritual investment. It's the artistic investment.

And it is just kind of an accumulation of human endeavour in that building, I feel. And it's the community's greatest expression of itself across centuries. And I think that's really powerful and something that should be protected. but not even just across century, kind of a greatest expression across centuries, sometimes it's across millennia. Quite a few of the churches in our care, particularly in Wales,

are set within oval or circular churchyards, which archaeologists will tell us that that presumably means that it was a pre-Christian site. So the church was built in a pre-Christian site, and that indicates then that humans have kind of gathered on that spot they've found meaning and attached importance to that place

for thousands of years. And I really love that. continuity of place and that alone is kind of worth saving in and of itself. Yeah, I think the idea that it's been spiritually important for thousands of years even before Christianity in the church is a real link to the past. It is exactly. And for me as well, it kind of proves that, you know, if we're kind of coming into an increasingly secular age, then, you know, you can kind of say that, well, actually, it was important before Christianity and it can be important post-Christianity as well.

So I think that's very interesting. Obviously, the places are brimming with art and architecture. I think that's an obvious reason to save something. But I think if you start taking a reductive approach saying, you know, that's an important monument. That's not really helpful because what I've found is they'll say, oh, well, if the monument's important, then we'll just take the monument out and put it somewhere else and then just get rid of the church. So actually, you know, the building that it was created for is lost and just that one object. So I think, yes, there's lots of important art and architecture,

but I think why you save a church is more than just specific items. And what I think about it is, for me, it all kind of comes down to memory. memory is such a hugely important part of the parish church. I think within the parish church, it's individual, it's collective. You know, you can hear centuries of faith in the cold stone. You can hear the passing of time. You can see it in how the depths in the port are worn down by faithful feet. You can kind of see the greasy marks on the monuments. You can see it, golly, in the graffiti that you just happened to clue what they meant. But, you know, it's kind of from a bygone age. You can see it, you know, in the hasics that somebody cross-stitched

with their hands and that they wore thin with their knees. And I think that's so important. But I guess I deal with redundant churches. They're churches that the church doesn't want. The parish has walked away. The church has walked away. But for me, the building goes on. And it doesn't lose its importance just because the church doesn't think it's needed for worship anymore.

And like I said at the beginning, I find these places so important because it's that kind of deep sense of humanity. and these places transcend race or religion or time because of concentration of shared human experience within their walls and that's important for me. Yeah, so much faith and coming together of communities happened within those walls over a period of hundreds of years. It would be a shame to lose that fabric, I guess.

Well, exactly. And I think as well, you know, I said at the beginning that these places were built by their congregation and I think the churches are kind of the monument in many cases to the lives of hundreds of people that are totally forgotten about. But, you know, this is kind of their gift to the future, the gift to posterity, you know, and I kind of think, you know, it's an inheritance. So we should look after it and treat it well.

Yeah, and I guess for them it would have been the centre of their community literally and figuratively and spiritually. So it would have been the place where they were baptised, where they would have got married, where they would have spent most of their Sundays and where they would eventually have been buried. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, it was the focal point of their lives and, yeah, they should be saved. I think it was a good example of Clan Fagnan Church, where, you know, it was a good example of Clan Fagnan Church, where, You mentioned that the way that it was built captures the light, so there's no electricity there. And again, you know, could you just tell us a little bit about that and why that's important? So we wouldn't want to lose something like that, an aspect that such care was taken over.

Yeah. Oh, well, I know I shouldn't have favourites. But Clangglin is one of my favourite churches. So it's St. Bagelan's Church, Clamfaglin, which is outside Canarvan in North Wales. And it's right on the shore of the Menai Straits. And it's got, you know, Snowdonia Mountain Ridge behind it. It's set in a circular churchyard It's just such a beautiful place It's an L-shaped building

And it's got grave markers From the 6th century Built into the wall And you know writing Son of Laverneous kind of buried here And they've all kind of been recycled Into bits of the building But we know that it was a place of worship

You know from the 6th century And oh there's just one time that I visited It was a couple of years ago And it was October It was the evening and I kind of went into the church And I was doing whatever I needed to do And the light was kind of dying And there's no electricity

is no running water or anything like that in most of our churches, I should say. But, you know, the Menai Strait was immediately to the west and the sun dropped, the sun was setting and just when it got to a certain point, the light just shot up under the eaves. So all the eaves are open,

so they're not in close, so nice ventilation, a bit cold, but good for ventilation. And the light just shot up under the eaves. The light in the church just glowed for a couple of minutes, you know, oh, it was just kind of the most intense orange. And then just like that, it was all gone. It was all over. And it was like, you know, over for another day. And I just kind of think, yeah, you know, if you put electric light bulbs into that church. Or even if you blocked up the eaves to try and make it warmer or anything like that, you would have lost it, you know, and they were kind of deep eaves open for a reason, you know, to capture that important moment, you know, to capture that important moment. Yeah, that's just something that important. That's just something that will stay.

with me forever. And I tried to describe it and I took photographs and nothing, nothing can kind of capture it. So, yeah, it's just something you need to experience. I'm adding that to my list of places to go, I think. Although the only problem I have is looking at your list of places. There's a lot of places in Wales and my Welsh pronunciation probably leaves a lot to be deserved. So I apologise for all of the things I'm liable to get wrong as we go on. Hello, I'm James Rogers and over on the history hit warfare podcast. We're marking the 20th anniversary of 9-11. We welcome Joe Ditmar, who, was on the 105th floor of Tower 2. He takes us through his personal experience of surviving 9-11 and his escape on that day. We also welcome Jessica DeLong, who provides a different perspective.

She served at Ground Zero and she tells us about the efforts to fight the raging fires and evacuate thousands of people via boat. We're also joined by world-leading experts on the history of terrorist hijackings and the history of terror attacks on New York City going back to the 1920s. Join us for this special commemorative week on the History Hit Warfare podcast. I think a lot of your sites are on the coast or around marshes, even I think on an island in a lake.

Are these places near the water, are they more at risk? Are they more important? Do they need more saving? Yeah, those are all very good questions. So I think a lot of our churches, they do kind of occupy the edges, kind of. And there's kind of a, for me, anyway, there's a bit of like a liminal quality to them. those kind of liminal spaces.

Like you said, they're on crumbling coastlines, they're sinking into salt marshes, they're kind of on the edge of a mountain, kind of hanging quite literally between heaven and earth. And for me, what's really interesting with those places is that the landscape is ancient and brand new kind of all at once.

It's really ancient but ever changing, but a constant feature for these places. So, yes, I guess the kind of importance of water is the big thing, really. I think a lot of our sites have holy wells. Some have them right in the churchyard, some are very nearby. as an example, going back to Clan Vaglan,

which is that one circular churchyard, Mani Straits, right outside it. There was, until about the 1960s, a holy well there. It was infilled, which is terrible. But it was an ancient holy well, and people came from mild, because apparently the water in St. Baglan's well could cure warts.

So if you got a copper pin and dipped it in some water from the well, and then jabbed it into your wart, said a few prayers, drop the pin in, apparently, that cured your warts. And there was an excavation done, and they found like thousands of copper pins at the bottom of this well. So it was an important site.

But, yes, I think that kind of thing, being on pilgrimage routes and having these holy wells along those roots is very important. I don't want to kind of get old mystic make kind of on you. I don't know if that's like, but you know, I mentioned that they're kind of liminal spaces. What do we mean by liminal spaces, sorry, just for those who don't know? And I will freely admit I had to Google liminal spaces. It's not a word I know. Kind of just places that kind of hover between worlds, you know.

Like, this isn't what liminal spaces mean, but what I imagine these places being is like, there's an episode of Doctor Who, and I love Doctor Who, and it's The Eleventh Doctor's First episode, and it's Prisoner Zero, and he's got like some sort of like obscuring thing on him. So it's like, there's like something in the corner of your eye, you know it's there, but you can't see it or you kind of don't appreciate it, you know, anyway. So that's my Doctor Who reference, sorry. I have to get one in at least. But yeah, places that kind of occupy, between worlds, I guess.

There's that meeting of heaven and earth matching the meeting of land and sea. Land and sea, heaven and earth, like I was saying, about these places that are on mountain sides. For me, like, that's sighting on the side of a mountain is, you know, are you trying to get closer to God? Like, literally going up and, I mean, it's a real pain because when you're trying to do re-roofing works, trying to get a van with a load of slate up the side of a mountain, it's not the easiest. But I think, you know, these places, were they at risk? Yes, they absolutely are. So crumbling coastlines, you know, coastal erosion is a real problem.

And there are some churches, which probably 50 years time won't be here, because they're going off the side of a cliff. But one of our churches in Essex, which is St Mary's Munden. It's right on the edge of a salt march. It's got these petrified oaks behind it. It's the most... It's just an incredible session.

So the petrified oaks, they were killed, we think, by just a really high salt concentration in the ground. But it's really difficult for us because the ground underneath it is kind of shifting. So the building is constantly moving. So like prop up and underpin one side and then it's like five years later. Oh, the other side.

on the run, so we have to go over and kind of get that one. It just doesn't want to stay still. Yeah, so that is difficult. But I can see why those places were chosen for their perceived importance. That sounds terrible. But anyway, they're important. That's probably harks back to when a lot more churches were like that. I'm thinking, you know, Ely, where Ely cathedral is, was an island at one point in the middle

of marshes. If we think where Glastonbury is now, you know, that was previously all marshland. So it's almost a little reminder that our country has changed a lot. And perhaps that people have been fighting these shifting land. for hundreds and hundreds of years and we still are today? Well, definitely. And I do think, you know, you did mention at the beginning that we had a church in a lake. Unfortunately, it's no longer in a lake because it was probably such a pain to look after,

that the lake was drained. So it's now just in the middle of a field. Bit less dramatic. Yeah, a bit less dramatic, yeah. So if a lot of these buildings that you looked after are in small communities that have been abandoned for a long time, can we assume that they're not grand, grand architectural masterpieces, but do they fit more into the description maybe of hidden gems? So are they well-built buildings or are they kind of rough things that the community would have

thrown together? Yeah, I guess I don't like the word rough because I think that does a bit of a disservice. They're built using local labour, local materials and they're kind of very vernacular and wholesome, which is probably how I describe them. But yeah, I think they're not going to have any, well, our ones don't have any kind of amazing Gothic tracery or anything like that within them, but they're still really in beautiful and important places. And I think kind of an example of one that may not be the most grand building, but one that kind of captures a lot of why this is important is St. Dennis's Church in East Hatley in Cambridgeshire. So that church, we know, the nave of that church was built in 1217 and it was built using fieldstones.

And I find this so evocative to think, I just like, oh, it's amazing. to think of that people picked over all the surrounding fields. I mean, you'd need hundreds of thousands, not millions of stones, but they picked over these little kind of pebbly things and they picked enough stones to build a church. So then they would have washed them and they bound them in earth and lime and mortar and they built their church. And that's, for me, it's just a hugely important, it's a beautiful, powerful and enduring act of worship. And I mean, that church has really been through the mill. It was basically a bush kind of 10 years. ago. But now it's emerged from the bush and it is getting windows and a new roof and everything, but that church is still there and it has kind of survived. So like I said, it's that thing that's literally built by the hands of the people who used it. So it's important for that reason. Yeah, and it almost stands as a monument to their faith in their hard work and their commitment more than 800 years ago now. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Amazing. And are the reasons beyond the stone and mortar of the buildings that the Friends of Friendless churches look to preserve these buildings?

Do they tell her the stories? Yeah, they do. They do. A lot of these churches, and particularly our churches in Wales, and I know you might have trouble with the pronunciation, but they are built on sites that were used by or dedicated to local saints or where miracles happened. And I really like this kind of storytelling, really, and the kind of pageography and all this that comes out of all this. But I should say, whenever I share these stories on Facebook, on our Twitter account, a lot of people say, well, that didn't really happen. I'm kind of like, okay.

It's not the point, is it? Yeah, I mean, it's so easy to kind of dismiss it as folklore or whatever, but they're stories that have been handed down over centuries. And I think these stories and kind of the messages that they contained, they helped kind of with the protection of these places over years because they were venerated, saints that they dedicated to were venerated. And these stories helped to protect them. But I think when you mentioned earlier about the island, and this is a church in North Wales, it's Onus Conherne, and Ones is Island and Welch, and it's Ones Conherne, which is the island of St. Conherne. And St. Conherne was basically, he was a holy man, but his family weren't, and they were really annoying him. So he just rode out to the middle of a lake to get away from them and built a church there. And that was the start of that church, which is, you know, in something like the 8th century.

and the church has just grown up from that and similarly is kind of moving down towards Powis where there's St. Elu who is a female saint and her grandfather was a king in that area and he really wanted her to marry some prince or whatever and she didn't want to and she ran away and she spent ages kind of roaming the mountains and all of this and they kept chasing her

and anyway the kind of jilted lover eventually caught up with her and said you know come on let's get married and he chopped off her head and I mean to be fair losing her head seems to be kind of a bit of an occupational hazard when you're medieval saint. But anyway, her head tumbled down the hill and where it stopped, a well kind of burst up from the ground, apparently, and because you're shaking your head in disbelief. No, it wasn't disbelief. I was just agreeing with the story.

Oh, right. Yeah, but I think, you know, a lot of people will accept that even if these things didn't literally happen, it becomes a part of local mythology and legends, if you like. And so even if it doesn't literally happen, then these buildings are a testament to those local myths and stories. Exactly. It just kind of adds to the richness of our understanding of these places. But just to finish St. Elu's story, because on that spot, a church was built then in her memory. And it's really interesting because she was around in the 6th century. And there are really interesting kind of brave markers from that century in the church.

So it could have happened. Yeah, absolutely could. It's an extreme reaction to being turned down for a marriage proposal, though. Sixth or seventh century women beware If a manhunch you across the mountains It's probably easier just to marry him So I like the idea of these buildings As a tangible link to those stories

And I guess that's another reason Why they're worth saving and worth protecting As part of a cultural heritage That would otherwise be completely lost Why would you remember that site and that story If there was nothing there to remind you of it? Yeah, exactly, exactly And do the churches in your care

Do they contain any important items That need to be preserved? So is there anything in particular? that is within the churches that's really interesting that maybe people could go and see. Yeah, sure. I think so many of these places are stuffed with art. That's just like amazing. It's ancient and it's, you know, so highly accomplished. And it's worthy of being in any national museum. But I think for me, what's great is that it's not. You know, it's in the middle of a field somewhere. It's on the side of a road. But it's in its original context. It's in the building that it was made for.

And I really love that you can go into any church and you kind of never know what you'll find. and that's always, you know, voyage of discovery and it's great. But for us, I think one thing that's really interesting are the rude screens that survive in Wales that we've got. So I mentioned St. Eliu and her church at Chenelieu in Powis. There is an amazing rude screen in there, which is kind of a veranda-style rude screen. And the rude, which would have been, you know,

the cross and the crucifix and the figures, you can still see the outline of where that was. They obviously had that up and they painted around it and you can still see the kind of ghostly outline of it. But it's a huge monumental ox-blood red screen with little peepholes kind of going through it, potterful peepholes, and it's just beautiful. But in that church, there are lots of very interesting wall painting,

including the only surviving medieval wall painting depiction of Adam and Eve, which is great. It's quite battered. You can see the tree and the snake and their feet on little blades of grass, which are very cute, but we'll find that there. L'enelyu screen is really interesting. It's quite plain, though, but if you went to places in Monmouthshire or even just in Powis,

like Clenano or Langeum Uchav, so it's St. Anos, Clanano in Powis or St. Jerome's Languom Uchav in Monmouthshire. These are amazing, 15th century, unbelievably ornate carved screens. You know, they've got vines and whivorns and serpents and grapes and linenfold panels and kind of lacy bits. All carved in wood, absolutely beautiful. I mean, they are monumental, they're so huge and so beautiful. So, yeah, for me, definitely the root screen. are massively, massively important and interesting. And as you say, I guess they could be preserved somewhere else,

but they would lose something by not being in their proper context? Yeah, oh, totally. I think particularly the screen at Clangom Uchav, because that was put in in the 15th century. The screen is stuffed with pomegranates because it was built around the time of the marriage between Prince Arthur and Catherine of Oregon. And all of the windows in that church are kind of early 13th, 14th century windows, except one, which is very much late 15th, early 16th century window.

And that window was put in to illuminate the screen. But if you look up, most of the medieval glass has been gone. But if you look up really high into the tracery, you can see the most beautiful silver-stain pomegranates and tudor roses. They're just hanging in there. But that window kind of only makes sense with that screen. So, yeah, definitely. But I just think you would lose so much by removing it, basically.

Yeah, it's all part of the same story, isn't it? And as soon as you lose part of the story, you might as well lose all of it. And I just kind of think, you know, you lose one bit and then you kind of don't make sense of the other bit. And it's just kind of erosion, basically. Yeah, the real appeal and beauty is in the whole. And are there many surviving things like reliquies

and other monuments around the churches that people might be able to see? So, yes, in Lambalin, which is on Anglesey, it is on Anglesea, there's a church out there, which is built on a little knoll in the landscape, and it's down an ancient causeway, and it's kind of built up. And the surviving church, a lot of it dates, is the 12th century, but there's something inside in that church, which is really weird and has

puzzled historians and kind of archaeologists for a long time, because it's called a, you know, locally it's called a font, but it doesn't look like any other fonts that we've ever seen. So it's kind of rectangular in shape. It's probably like a meter long and maybe half a meter wide. There isn't like any plunge hole or anything like that in the middle of it. And it's really intricately carved and it's carved on three sides and the back of it is plain. So what kind of historians think is that actually that this was used to hold the relics pot. possibly of St. Palin himself, who built the original church on that site. And it's an unusual survival, if it is, of an altar that contained relics. So rather than being a font, which is what

we think it is today, we think it's possibly a 12th century altar that held the relics of St. Palin. And would that have somehow survived the dissolution of the monasteries and the advent of the Church of England and Protestantism? The altar, because obviously the relics would have been collected up and destroyed. Yeah, the relics are totally gone. And the relics are totally gone. And the altar itself is kind of relegated to the back of the church behind all the pews and everything. It's really kind of shoved back and totally out of the way. It has survived.

And unbelievably, kind of crisp carving and really well, totally intact and everything. Yeah, I just wonder with things like that where they get shoved to the back and undercover to save them. There must have been members of the church who didn't agree with all of the destruction that was going on and maybe some of this was a way to preserve that for the future. And again, you know, so we should preserve it now.

Yeah, totally. if it meant so much that they saved it, then we should definitely look after it too, definitely. Are there other reasons for wishing to protect some of these buildings? So I'm thinking the cultural advantages to us today, so in terms of research, things like that? Yeah, yeah, good question. I think a lot of people would say that parish churches in England

are really greatly under-researched. In England, there are 16,000 Anglican churches. A lot of churches. There's about 3,200 in Wales. but of the 16,000 Anglican ones in England, 12,000 are designated heritage assets. So of that 12,000, less than 50% have been accurately surveyed, researched, and then of that 50%, less than half of that research has been published.

So I guess we're making decisions about the future of these places without really knowing very much about them at all. And that seems a bit dangerous to be kind of sending these buildings into the future. future without properly researching them. I think we're very quick to criticise people in the past who were destroying things that we would have liked to have seen preserved today. And I think maybe we're in danger of being guilty of that for future generations. I mean, for sure, I think two examples of churches that were scheduled for demolition where we found kind of amazing artefacts. One is St. Peter's Weckham Bishops in Essex. And that was a church that kind of in the late

19th century, it found itself on the wrong side of the tracks, kind of pretty literally. The village just migrated and you know the church was on the other side so they built a church on the other side once the railway arrived but that church was in the most dire state of repair and we stepped in and we've been kind of bringing it back to life gradually but in doing so we've discovered a series of wall paintings so like 13th 14th 16th and 17th century wall paintings really you know nobody knew we're there because you know they've kind of plastered over this stuff and the other um but But, you know, you could have lost all of that so quickly, you know. And it's really interesting because it's Wickham Bishops and Bishops is in the names, that's sort of important.

But it was the church that was attached to the Bishops of London. So that's why it kind of had this amazing kind of like beautiful red roundels and fictive hangings and stuff painted. Could have been lost. And I guess another example very quickly would be St. Mary Magdalene's Bovney in Buckinghamshire, which is just outside Windsor. And that is a gorgeous little church right on the banks of the Thames. But again, you know, while we were doing work there, we found fragments of a 15th century alabaster riridos that had been broken up, like, you know, presumably during the Reformation or sometime afterwards, and buried in the wall. Because I guess whoever buried is thought it was sacred and it needed to be treated with respect or that, you know, it was a sacred object to kind of keep within the church somewhere but concealed and just another thing that you could have lost so quickly. That's a fascinating link to the idea of people preserving their faith and almost an act of just.

defiance, burying something sacred within the walls of the church to protect it from the destruction that was coming because they clung to the belief that it was special and important, and they preserved it for you to find now. It's a great reason to be restoring and looking after these places for me. And I think the medieval wall paintings, again, is a reminder of a different world. So I think it's hard for us to imagine today that churches would have previously, in the medieval period, would have been full of colour, not just from the stained glass windows, but paintings all over the walls that get whitewashed at the Reformation because they don't want to look at that anymore. So churches would have looked very different from what we imagine, and these are really

tangible reminders of that. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's thrilling because, you know, when you kind of uncover like a splash of color, you kind of get a glimpse of the glory that used to kind of be there. And now we're so used to just seeing them bare stone or white plaster, but actually they would have been completely such vibrant places. Yeah. And are you still acquiring churches that are at risk?

Yeah, we are. we are. So at the top of the podcast, I said how we started out by campaigning and kind of grant dating churches. And then in the 70s, we started taking churches into our care. So we have 58 churches in our care at the moment. But we take on more every single year. There's about 30 churches that close every year in England. So yes, we do take on more every year. We're going to take on two this year. One in New Yorkshire grade one listed St. Helen's Skeffling just outside Hall and St. Andrews, South Runkton in Norfolk. But yes, every year we take on. on more. I'd imagine it's an endless task and there must be ones that slip by that you wish you could

have saved maybe. Yeah, definitely, definitely, I guess, but we don't receive any public funding in England, so it's all kind of through donations and just people that feel the way we do and that these places should be protected, but that kind of only goes so far. So we do what we can, as much as we can, to protect these places. I guess the thing is as well, though, no building has a right to eternal life, really. And I guess just at the friend's we try and take a long view and we try and think in centuries and try to hand things on. That's fantastic. You mentioned earlier, are all of your church is open for people to visit?

All of the places that you've been listening, if we can pronounce the Welsh names and find our ways there. Are they all available for everyone to go and visit? Yeah, yeah, everything, I mean, unless it's closed for repair, which our website will tell you, yes, they're all open. Most places are open every single day. You don't need to collect a key. Some places you may have to go and knock on a door nearby and collect a key. but most are open every day.

Fantastic. And how can people find out more about the Friends of Friendless Churches and maybe get involved if they want to? Where is your website, for example? Our website is the longest website name you've ever heard. www.w.friendlesschurches.org. Dot, but we're also on Twitter, you know, Friends, Churches, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn.

If you're on LinkedIn, we're there. So, yeah, you'll find us all over various parts of the internet. fabulous and are there ways that people can get involved with the friends yeah absolutely i think we're always looking for volunteers particularly local volunteers to try and help us look after these places we're a very small organization so we've just got one and a half members of staff so we absolutely rely on local people to help us out with these places but also this year if i can get my act together we will be organizing a working party for our anglacy churches whereby people can come and have a go at lime washing line pointing

and yeah, painting some rainwater goods, but actually getting on site and helping us to care for these buildings in a really practical way. That sounds like a fantastic opportunity to get really hands-on with some of this history. That's incredible. Well, thank you so much for taking the time

to talk to us today about this invaluable work, Rachel. That was really fascinating. I hope it's raised the profile of something that's perhaps been taken for granted by a lot of us who just admire these buildings as we're out and about and take them a little bit for granted, I guess. Don't forget to subscribe to Gone Medieval

wherever you get your podcast, and tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. I'd just like to give a quick mention to Susanna Lipscomb's fantastic, not just the Tudor's podcast, also from History Hits. There's an episode on the dissolution of the monasteries that provides a counterpoint to the general preservation of buildings of worship. Thank you so much for joining us. I've been Matt Lewis, and we've just gone medieval with history hits.