Country Churches

This is a celebration of England's most glorious churches, from Norman masterpieces and Medieval treasures to Baroque splendour and Victorian high gothic. Simon Jenkins has travelled England from Cornwall to Cumbria to select its finest churches of all periods and styles, unearthing rich mosaics, precious stained glass, grand marbles and humble carvings of green men, dogs, rabbits and birds. In doing so he reveals not only an unparalleled collection of national art and architecture, but the history and spirit of a people. Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too. It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are travelling through it. English Journeys celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).