Little and large

Here are two approachable and distinctive books on our churches, great and small. Simon Jenkins’s cathedrals survey follows his earlier volumes on England’s best churches and houses, and like them includes fine photography by the late Paul Barker of Country Life. Too hefty to serve as a guide book, it can be consulted as a reference work, or read with pleasure for its vivid and well-informed descriptions.

Jenkins’s parish churches book was a publishing hit in 1999 — partly, one suspects, because it stimulated parochial rivalries with its five-star rating system. The cathedrals are ranked too. At the top are the author’s personal favourites, the ‘three graces’ of Ely, Lincoln and Wells, which share the maximum score with Canterbury, Durham, Westminster Abbey and Winchester. The single-star league is made up mostly of Catholic cathedrals, and some of the C of E’s dimmer promotions from urban parish churches, such as Blackburn and Portsmouth.