The Essay: Churchcrawls in Solitude

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The Essay: Churchcrawls in Solitude: Dunwich, Suffolk

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Dunwich, Suffolk

Churchcrawls in Solitude

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Diarmaid MacCulloch explores his life and work through five of Britain's historic churches

Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch takes us on a ‘churchcrawl’ to Dunwich in Suffolk to visit some of Britain's ancient churches.

For Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch ‘churchcrawling’, defined by him as the relentless pursuit of churches of all shapes and sizes just for the fun of it, “like a pub crawl, only with churches”, has been a lifelong pursuit. Today the historian takes us to Dunwich, on the Suffolk coast, the place of his favourite childhood expeditions, where he meditates on his delight with ruins throughout his life. Dunwich is perilously near the North Sea and as a boy Diarmaid would inspect the ghost of All Saints, the last medieval parish church at Dunwich. The church has a humble Victorian replacement inland, St James, which is built near a 12th-century ruined fragment from one of Dunwich's medieval hospitals. It’s also where the very last buttress of All Saints stands, rescued and rebuilt here just before it fell over the cliff. This is, says Dairmaid, “three churches for the price of one, all in a single churchyard: Dunwich is the churchcrawler’s bargain bucket.”

Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
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