Preface

About me. For most of my life I have worked with words, first as a business journalist, then on an Anglican Church newspaper. This was followed by a season editing Bible reading notes for Scripture Union. Finally, I spent seven fascinating years working with an NHS mental health team before retiring. At last I had the time to focus on a project that had been buzzing around at the back of my mind for more than 20 years, and which I had been researching more by accident than design, picking up leaflets and books as we toured around the country.

The project. Visit any town or city in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland and you will notice that there are many different buildings called ‘church’. Pride of place will go to the parish church with its beautiful spire or tower dominating the townscape. In the city, a huge and glorious 800-year-old cathedral, busy with tourists from all over the world, will be the focus. Walking down a side street in search of a pub or teashop, you might notice a sign to the Catholic Church and there, unexpectedly, you will find an intriguing modern building, its concrete walls cut with jewel-like stained glass windows. 

At the end of the High Street, a still lovely but smaller, traditional-looking church will be found, with a sign inviting you to join the Methodists for coffee. Later, while waiting in your car for the lights to change, you might see a little sign pointing to a ‘Friends Meeting House’. The sign is indeed pointing to a friendly-looking house, but who meets there and why? 

On a visit to your hometown you notice, as if for the first time, the United Reformed Church, and then remember that when you caught the school bus on the pavement outside, it used to be called the Presbyterian Church – why the change? On holiday in Scotland, you realise that the little cottage next to your holiday let is in fact a church; while in Wales it seems that there is an imposing chapel in every village, but many seem to be closed – why were they all built in the first place? In Ireland the well-maintained ruin of a monastic settlement dating back to the 6th century is still celebrating the recent visit of a pope! How did this remote place become so significant? Were all these different places founded by people who share the same Christian beliefs?

The process. I began my research by looking at an old copy of the Shell Guide to England because many of the best-known monuments and buildings, the ones that every tourist should visit, have links to our religious history. There are of course, the great cathedrals like York and Winchester, but also smaller buildings like John Wesley’s Methodist Chapel in London and his equally interesting West Country outpost in Bristol. This helped me compile a list of ‘turning points’ in the history of Christianity in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

The plan. So, except for the mighty Catholic Church which claims the Apostles as its fathers and Rome as its home and which is included here because, before the Reformation, we were nearly all Catholic (or Orthodox), I have focused on Protestant Trinitarian churches that have their origins in these islands, so there is no mention of rapidly-growing denominations like Hillsong, Vineyard or the Pentecostal movement which have their origins elsewhere.

As well as being a history, the book/website could serve as a travel guide for individuals and families interested in doing something a bit different with their free time. I have visited just about every one of the recommended locations to check that there is parking and a café or a shop in which to have a cup of tea and pick up local guidebooks and more information (apologies if the information is out of date and the chosen café is closed – I update pages when I find this has happened). In fact, travelling around and visiting places as dissimilar as a ‘Wee Free’ chapel on Skye, the Ironbridge museums in Shropshire, the Corrymeela Community in Northern Ireland and Westminster Cathedral in London has been one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life, and I must thank my husband for driving me to most of the locations mentioned in this book during the many years it has taken to gather the information. 

I am a journalist, not a historian, so when I discovered that just about every different branch of the Christian faith can be traced back to one person and to one significant place, I treated the chapters of this book as a series of interviews, the difference being that I had to use letters, books and third-hand reports instead of face-to-face interviews in order to delve into the motivations that drove people to leave the church they had grown up in to seek something new.

Where possible, each chapter has been read through by a representative of the relevant church or denomination, and permission to quote from original sources has been sought from all copyright owners where required. Any lapses, mistakes or misunderstandings will be due to my lack of attention to what I was reading or writing.