This is just a quick post to answer a question that I frequently get asked - which is why, when I go to a village or small town to explore, I generally start with the church.
Well, it's quite simply history. You can go to a city or a notable town, and the history is apparent. Big buildings, statues of the famous etc. But that's not where my interest lies. You can read any number of books on say, the Tower of London, or the monarchs of Great Britain, but I like finding the obscure, the odd and unwritten titbits of history, the social life of an area, and as the church was inevitably the centre of a community, that's where the history is recorded.
In the words of Sir John Betjeman:
'Our churches are our history shown, in wood and glass and iron and stone"
No comments:
Post a Comment