Life & Work Magazine
Life & Work Magazine


2 mins

IF THESE STONES COULD TALK

The history of Christianity in Britain and Ireland through twenty-one buildings

Written by: Peter Stanford

Published by: Hodder & Stoughton

Price: £20

Much of this book is fascinating – drawing together the largescale picture of Christianity in Britain and tracing its roots though churches, abbeys, chapels and cathedrals, both present and past.

There are timelines to assist and this book has helped pieces of the religious jigsaw fall into place for me personally – particularly the turbulent years of the Middle Ages when religion united and divided not just communities but nations.

The biggest mentions for Scotland come with Whithorn – and the work of Ninian (representing the fourth century) – and St Giles in Edinburgh (for its famous role in the Reformation and representing the 17th century) and there is a notable mention of Holy Trinity Church in St Andrews.

Stanford works through the history on a century by century basis, with a focus on a building or area of note to tell the story of Christianity through each 100-year segment.

In an introduction he describes how the work is based around ‘church crawling’ – inspired by a rainy day visit to a local church on a family holiday to Norfolk which sowed the seeds of this unique retelling of Christian history across the UK and Ireland.

The book, perhaps not surprisingly, focuses mainly on Anglican/Catholic traditions, although Methodism and Meeting Houses do feature. For me there are a small number of gripes: the 19th century date of the Disruption – which divided the Church of Scotland for a number of years – is missing and was significant in terms of Scottish ecclesial history and also a lack of reference to some other significant buildings (not just in the Church of Scotland) across Scotland which have also played a part in Scotland’s story of faith. The Church of England’s decision to admit women priests in the 1990s is noted in an introductory timeline, but there is no mention of the Church of Scotland’s decision to admit women ministers nearly 30 years before in the 1960s. This was a moment which (in my opinion) deserved to be noted in such a timeline.

However, it would be difficult to capture the entire history of Christianity and Britain and its multifaceted strands and splinters through buildings when hundreds have played a role in a number of different denominations and it was clearly a tough task to whittle them down to just 21 (and a number of notable mentions).

As expected with Stanford’s writing credentials (author and regular columnist in The Observer and Tablet and feature writer for both the Daily and Sunday Telegraph), the history is beautifully drawn together with concise, yet elegant and informative language.

This hardback would make a good Christmas gift for anyone interested in a general overview of religion in the UK and Ireland over the last 21 centuries, or for anyone interested in the buildings chosen to illustrate the history.

This article appears in the December 2021 Issue of Life and Work

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This article appears in the December 2021 Issue of Life and Work