The tiny charity that saves derelict churches from destruction

There is a plateau of neglect upon which an old church seems to sit for a while blessedly spared from ‘improvement’. But on the far side of the plateau, the land falls away steeply to closure, vandalism and ruination.

St Mary’s church, Mundon, possessed of a rare tranquillity, had begun slipping off the plateau by 1975. The nave was exposed to rain by a gappy roof. Brambles lashed in the wind at the broken windows. Demolition was proposed. But in that year it was taken into the care of a small voluntary organisation, Friends of Friendless Churches.

So it was that I could find myself standing in the dimness of the church on a winter afternoon (there being no electric light) talking to a volunteer, Christine McDonald, who has lived within half a mile all her life. ‘As teenagers before 1975,’ she said, ‘we saw the signs “Danger. Keep out” as a challenge, and got in through a broken window.