Sir Michael Palin backs campaign to keep churches open seven days a week to attract tourism
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Sir Michael Palin has backed a campaign to keep churches open seven days a week to increase tourism.
The National Church’s Trust (NCT), a charity that raises funds to maintain religious buildings, warned that 3,500 churches have shut their doors since 2013, with many more facing closure.
The charity has described it as “the single biggest heritage challenge facing the UK”.
There are about 38,500 churches, chapels and meeting houses open for worship in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
However, their future is under threat owing to a lack of funds and expertise to maintain them, putting community services such as food banks and youth clubs – which churches often host – at risk.
But the charity has proposed an action plan to rescue the buildings.
This could see churches open to visitors outside of usual worship times and for seven days a week.
The Trust has now launched Every Church Counts, a manifesto of six proposals, including raising public funds of at least £50 million for urgent repairs and expanding the use of buildings for community services such as nurseries and shelter.
Churches double up as food banks and nurseries
Monty Python star Sir Michael Palin, the actor and comedian, who is vice-president of the NCT, said: “Right now, many church buildings are in danger of closure. Every Church Counts’ proposes a range of ways in which the future of the UK’s churches, chapels and meeting houses can be secured.
“More churches are adapting to the needs of their communities, providing not just spiritual comfort but a range of valuable services to local people such as food banks and warm spaces and helping to combat the scourge of loneliness.”
Sir Michael added: “Churches are also a vital and much-loved part of the UK’s history and we need to act now to prevent the loss of tremendously important local heritage.”
The Trust has also called for a new Government strategy to increase church tourism from the UK and overseas, with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport working with tourist boards to commission a national study “to make more of this unrivalled asset”.
The campaign comes as the Church of England faces unprecedented pressures. Analysis by The Telegraph has shown that Church of England parishes are closing at a record rate.
Almost 300 have disappeared in the past five years, analysis of church data reveals, the fastest rate since records began in 1960.
The figures, published in September, came as a dossier accused bishops and senior clergy of “putting a gun to people’s heads” to drive through plans to cut costs, merge parishes and reduce numbers of vicars.
The claims emerged against the backdrop of declining congregation numbers, leaving many clergy afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs and amid accusations that the Church of England has been “dealt a death knell”.
The Trust’s strategy to boost tourism could see more historic places of worship marked as Unesco world heritage site destinations - such as the wool churches of Norfolk and Suffolk which were funded by rich merchants and farmers or early Christian sites of Wales.
It follows a growing trend to entice younger generations through church and cathedral doors.
Norwich Cathedral was accused of “treating God like a tourist attraction” after it installed a 55-ft, £2-a-ride helter skelter in its nave in 2019.
