Peter Ross

'A delicious treat' - Financial Times **TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR pick 2023** 'A charming odyssey' - The Times 'A wonderful book; thoughtful and challenging' - Daily Telegraph ***** 'A beautiful book' - Gabriel Byrne 'Beautiful and brilliant. I loved it' - Fergus Butler-Gallie From the author of A Tomb With a View - Scottish Non-Fiction book of the Year Churches are all around us. Their steeples remain landmarks in our towns, villages and cities, even as their influence and authority has waned. They contain art and architectural wonders - one huge gallery scattered, like a handful of jewels, across these isles. Award-winning writer Peter Ross sets out to tell their stories, and through them a story of Britain. Join him as he visits the unassuming Norfolk church which contains a disturbing secret, and London's mighty cathedrals with their histories of fire and love. Meet cats and bats, monks and druids, angels of oak and steel. Steeple Chasing, though it sometimes strikes an elegiac note, is a song of praise. It celebrates churches for their beauty and meaning, and for the tales they tell. It is about people as much as place, flesh and bone not just flint and stone. From the painted hells of Surrey to the holy wells of Wales, consider this a travel book . . . with bells on. Praise for Peter Ross 'Ross is a wonderfully evocative writer, deftly capturing a sense of place and history, while bringing a deep humanity to his subject. He has written a delightful book.' - The Guardian 'Fascinating . . . Ross makes a likeably idiosyncratic guide and one finishes the book feeling strangely optimistic about the inevitable.' - The Observer 'The author's humanity has acted as a beacon of light in the darkness.' - The Sunday Times

Around Britain by Church

Steeple Chasing

Laura Dobie

As the years passed, as life scythed its scars,I left Church. But churches never quite left me. For those of us who were brought up with them, as worshipper or visitor, those grey walls and hard pews are in our souls. For those born homesick for the past, old churches offer the consolation of homecoming. And so, as I grew older, I found myself drawn back not to pray or praise necessarily, but to sit for a bit, to poke around, to get in out of the rain. I began to appreciate the wisdom of John Betjeman's words: ‘Church crawling is the richest of pleasures, it leads you to the remotest and quietest country, it introduces you to the history of England in stone and wood and glass which is always truer than what you read in books.’

Whenever I was in Whitby, I would visit the cliff-top church of St Mary the Virgin which, lately, has grown so popular with tourists that a sign has been placed on the door advising visitors to please stop asking for directions to Dracula's grave.

It is one of the quirks of chant that the singing does not reflect the content or mood of the text. Quiet supplication of God and angry calling down of divine vengeance upon your enemies will both sound rather lovely. This, together with the obscurity of the language, explains why chant has come to be associated with relaxation and soft-focus spirituality. It is the music of bubble baths and scented candles. I had wondered what the brothers make of this, whether they feel that their deep religious art is being lost in the shallows. But no. As long as people are hearing it, they are content. 

‘You pray as you can, not as you can't,’ Father Giles had said. ‘It's not up to us to dictate: This Is How You Shall Consume This Product. You can eat your Mars Bar straight or deep-fried.’

This extended metaphor deserves some appreciation.

I met Doorkins on a fine day towards the end of September. Sapphire skies, amber leaves. Summer was catnapping in London, but autumn put forth a marmalade paw and pressed a claim to the territory.

Faith was given a silver medal in recognition of her bravery during the battle for London. She died in the autumn of 1948, a war veteran, on her favourite hearthrug, as Father Ross worked at his desk; alone together, priest and cat.

Also, Southwark, in possession of a substantial population of mice, was in want of a cat. Acquiring one had thus far proved difficult. The rescue centres were reluctant to rehome a cat in a cathedral. Here, though, was an animal that seemed to have no interest in being a pet and appeared drawn to the ancient building.  

“A lot of masons are reflective people, he replied. "They are not bragging. They are unusually modest and humble. Working with stone gives you the gift of reflection, You think slowly and with purpose”

Good limestone like this, he estimates, will erode at the rate of one millimnetre every four generations. A very slow process, yes, but Pascal knows that even his most careful carving can only ever be temporary. On this matter, as in all things, he is philosophical. He takes the long view, though not too long. He thinks in centuries, in oak trees, but not in millennia, in yews.

“I love these places because they are full of traces of the people who used them,” Rachel said. “The greasy timbers, the threadbare hassocks. When you see a worn step, like that one there, you think of the feet that went over it. Some of our churches are on pre-Christian sites; people have found something important about the spot for thousands of years, so I think it's very important that we acknowledge that, and don't demolish them, and don't sell them off as private spaces where no one else can go.”

‘These buildings transcend time,’ she said. They are the spiritual investment and the artistic legacy of generations, and a conmmunity's greatest expression of itself over centuries. There's a concentration of shared human experience within their walls, which means that churches like this are a monument to the lives of thousands of ordinary people who have been completely forgotten about. This is their gift to the future. I think that's really powerful and we need to protect it.’

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