After the Protestant Reformation, religion remained remarkably unstable in Great Britain, and places of worship were the focus of dispute and regular change. Beginning in the seventeenth century, the growth of the Nonconformist denominations left a particularly rich architectural legacy in the form of a vast and diverse network of churches and chapels constructed throughout the towns and cities of England. Although many of these buildings have been lost, about 20,000 remain, some still in use by congregations to this day. The Chapels of England provides the first chronological history of Nonconformist architecture in England, from the seventeenth century to the present day. Beautifully illustrated throughout with interior and exterior photography, the book includes examples that range from small wayside chapels to large urban churches and encompass all the country's regions and each of Nonconformity's main religious traditions. The book's chronological organization allows readers to follow the main developments in the architecture of Nonconformity and understand how these developments fit within broader religious and cultural conversations.

Simon Jenkins has travelled the length and breadth of England to select his thousand best churches. Organised by county, each church is described - often with delightful asides - and given a star-rating from one to five. All of the county sections are prefaced by a map locating each church, and lavishly illustrated with colour photos from the Country Life archive. Jenkins contends that these churches house a gallery of vernacular art without equal in the world. Here, he brings that museum to public attention.

For most people in England today, the church is simply the empty building at the end of the road, visited for the first time, if at all, when dead. It offers its sacraments to a population that lives without rites of passage, and which regards the National Health Service rather than the National Church as its true spiritual guardian. Here, Scruton argues that the Anglican Church is the forlorn trustee of an architectural and artistic inheritance that remains one of the treasures of European civilization. He contends that it is a still point in the centre of English culture and that its defining texts, the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer are the sources from which much of our national identity derives. At once an elegy to a vanishing world and a clarion call to recognize Anglicanism's continuing relevance, Our Church is a graceful and persuasive book.

The Church of England still seemed an essential part of Englishness, and even of the British state, when Mrs Thatcher was elected in 1979. The decades which followed saw a seismic shift in the foundations of the C of E, leading to the loss of more than half its members and much of its influence. In England today 'religion' has become a toxic brand, and Anglicanism something done by other people. How did this happen? Is there any way back? This 'relentlessly honest' and surprisingly entertaining book tells the dramatic and contentious story of the disappearance of the Church of England from the centre of public life. The authors – religious correspondent Andrew Brown and academic Linda Woodhead – watched this closely, one from the inside and one from the outside. That Was the Church, That Was shows what happened and explains why.

Bringing together researchers in modern British religious, political, intellectual and social history, this volume considers the persistence of the Church's public significance, despite its falling membership.

This fourth volume completes the series of inventories on Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses carried out by the RCHME - Central England (published 1986), South-west England (1991), Northern England (1994). This volume focuses on the east of England from the Channel to the Humber and encompasses the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, Essex, Greater London, Hertfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough, Kent, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Surrey and Sussex. Each entry includes a short history and description of the building, many with illustrations or photographs.

Offers liturgical material for the journey of each individual through life. For each key element of this journey (birth, marriage, healing, death), it provides both material for key ‘public’ events and resources for ‘private’ pastoral care.