Main content

Inglesham, Wiltshire

Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch takes us on a 鈥榗hurchcrawl鈥 to Inglesham in Wiltsire to visit one of Britain's ancient churches.

For Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch 鈥榗hurchcrawling鈥, defined as 鈥渓ike a pub crawl, only with churches鈥 has been a constant hobby over seven decades of his life. In this essay, the historian explains how there was also a time when visiting churches became therapy for his personal crisis after the Anglican church rejected his ordination as an openly gay man. Paradoxically his long-established pastime of endlessly looking round church buildings helped him to cope with the Church鈥檚 rejection. Diarmaid takes us to the Church of St John the Baptist in Inglesham, Wiltshire, which sums up his historical therapy in the 1990s. It鈥檚 a perfect example of how parish churches were both transformed and preserved after the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. But it is also frozen in time and the sort of Protestant Anglicanism it represents had no room for gay people, 鈥渢he past is the past, and I wouldn鈥檛 want to live there鈥 he says.

Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for 麻豆社 Radio 3

Available now

14 minutes

Broadcast

  • Thu 8 Apr 2021 22:45

Death in Trieste

Death in Trieste

A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.

Watch: My Deaf World

Watch: My Deaf World

Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.

The Book that Changed Me

Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.

Download The Essay

Download The Essay

Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.

Podcast