Since leaving the cosmopolitan delights of London and moving to deepest North Norfolk three years ago, I have become immersed in the question of rural churches in this most depopulated of counties.
Last week the Norfolk Churches Trust, of which I am chairman, held a national conference in Norwich about the plight of rural churches. The statistics are harsh. There are more than 1,000 churches of all denominations in the county of which the majority – 659 – are medieval Gothic churches built by Catholics but now Anglican, too many of which are struggling to survive.
