Steeple Chasing: Around Britain by Church

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Buildings like Old St Paul’s seem to stand outside time in a way that would make perfect sense to quite a number of people Ross interviews. At Durham, the aged guide talks about St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede as though they are both still living; at Lindisfarne, the former curate of the church next to the priory, tells him that as far as she is concerned Saints Aidan and Cuthbert ‘are just as alive as we are, though in a different state’. And although I wouldn’t go quite so far, I do think that knowledge of the past can, by making us aware of the fleetingness of our own lives, can gift us, however briefly, a sense of timelessness. Of all the reasons for taking up the hobby of what John Betjeman called ‘church-crawling’ – which Ross, tongue only slightly in cheek, suggests ought to be as popular as Munro-bagging – this is, I suspect, the one that chimes the loudest with him: that nowhere else do the past and present slip so easily into each other.

Many of the chapters talk about the incredible artefacts which can be found in churches whether art, stained glass, beautiful carvings, sculptures or, in one case, a rather disturbing wax effigy! The author talks of the buildings as being like museums or art galleries. Small congregations can’t afford to maintain the buildings or care for the artefacts as they would be cared for if they were in a museum. A museum curator visiting a church was quite horrified to see a priest holding a 15th century chalice without gloves which would be required in the museum. The priest, unphased, pointed out they use it every week, no doubt for Communion. A possibly valuable item being valued and used for its intended purpose. Each time I finish reading a Peter Ross book there’s a pattern developing. I Google a film. In the case of A Tomb With A View it was One Million Dollars, Anife Kellehers’s documentary about Dublin’s Glasnevin cemetery that’s also an elegy for its legendary tour guide, Shane MacThomais (who committed suicide aged 44, though that’s not mentioned in the film). It’s a remarkable watch.Steeple Chasing is a beautiful and brilliant book; written with such care and deep, abiding interest in its subject matter as to entrance the enthusiast and amateur alike. I loved it.' - Fergus Butler-Gallie 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. Good heavens but I am enamoured of Peters world. He conjures up images of pastoral bliss, with sublime rural church’s and majestic cathedrals. And even though our modern world is anything but blissful, this feeling of nostalgia for church’s, and all they embody, still shines through.

Although not quoted in Steeple Chasing, John Betjeman articulated similar thoughts in the poetry he wrote while serving as the press attache to the British High Commissioner in Dublin in 1941-3, especially those poems written while wandering round increasingly dilapidated graveyards in Church of Ireland country parishes. His poem ‘Emily in Ireland’, for example, ends like this: 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 The Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy is a Team Vicar in the Savernake Team Ministry. He is the author of Tales of a Country Parish (Short Books, 2022). Fascinating . . . Ross makes a likeably idiosyncratic guide and one finishes the book feeling strangely optimistic about the inevitable.’– The Observer Peters journey around this steepled isle was intriguing and fascinating to behold. The people he met along the way fabulous, and the cats regal. His writing style is second to none and his passion for his subject and the privilege he feels when meeting both places and people is palpable.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. 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. Fascinating . . . Ross makes a likeably idiosyncratic guide and one finishes the book feeling strangely optimistic about the inevitable.'-The Observer

The buildings themselves are often extraordinary. Most villages have one, towns and cities several, and they remain landmarks even as their authority has waned. We orient ourselves in relation to a steeple glimpsed across fields or at a busy junction, but more than this, churches offer us an idea of ourselves within history. And yet the upkeep of these precious buildings falls to the congregations alone. “A case could be made”, Ross says, “that the repair and maintenance of such buildings ought to be paid for by the state, rather than . . . the responsibility lying with an ever-smaller congregation to raise funds through grant applications and bake sales and the collection plate.” There’s nothing like a thousand-year-old building to give one perspective. There’s even a comfort in it: through plague and war, life goes on, the walls stand, and infants continue to be baptised in a font in use since around the Norman conquest. That old-church smell is not just damp and dust, but deep time and – ever so faintly – a scent of enduring hope. The angels are survivors. Destruction was nothing new to them of course, they were born of it. Acorn to oak to angel, these were trees once. They had roots and branches, drank from the earth, knew the thistledown touch of the sky. Birds landed and nested in them, the wings of crows foreshadowing their own coming form. In time they felt the kiss of the axe, the teeth of the saw and they began to take shape, to become angelic.‘What makes Steeple Chasing so compelling - and it is a wonderful book; thoughtful and challenging -