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PROGRAMME INFO |
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From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
Email: open.country@bbc.co.uk
Postal address: Open Country,
大象传媒 Radio 4, Birmingham, B5 7QQ.
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East Anglian Churches
This week's programme goes to East Anglia on a journey of historical discovery. The chapels and churches that were such an important part of village life are now a mine of information that offer a unique insight into the social history of Britain. The chiselled stone and decorated fonts offer up small clues of information that collected together, chart the fortunes of the village and the villagers. The social life of the village going back hundreds of years is laid before us, stories of landlords and serfs, craftsmen and beggars, it truly is a stunning architectural archive of village life.
Richard begins his journey in the village of Westhall in Suffolk. He meets Aidan Semmens and church warden Adrian Simpson-James. Aidan has scoured the county in pursuit of interesting churches but with this rich mix of architecture and social history nothing is simple, for example what makes an interesting church? Is it the architecture? Or the "holiness" or spirituality of a building? The voices that echo down the centuries can be as part of the fabric of a building as the foundations themselves.
The church at Westhall goes back 800 years and has survived the Reformation, the weather and perhaps something even more threatening, the apathy and decline of religious belief. Adrian tells Richard that funding is a big issue and the 300 parishioners cannot afford the upkeep of the church but English Heritage which gives millions to the preservation of churches, hasn't got limitless funds and soon choices will have to be made. Which churches survive and which are left to decay.
David Yareham is a Methodist minister, he is also an agricultural engineer. David's father was a Methodist minister too and an agricultural worker. The relationship between The Methodist church and the agricultural workers is a central one that underpins the history of primitive Methodism. The growth of the church and its subsequent decline is paralleled with the rise and fall of the agricultural workers themselves. When millions worked on the land the church grew but with the rise of mechanisation and the migration of workers from the land to the towns, the church declined. Primitive Methodists established their chapels as both meeting places to worship and teach the faith but they also served as meeting places for workers to discuss the problems and conditions of their working lives. Methodism became a cornerstone in the formation of the agricultural unions and it still plays a part in union life today. David tells Richard that the church was for the landlord and the
Chapel was for the workers. The fate of the chapels is even less secure than the churches as they are not valued as highly and with limited funds English Heritage has some difficult decisions to make.
Christina Van Melzen meets Richard outside Walpole Old Chapel. At first glance the chapel looks like a row of cottages, no different from the thousands that dot the Suffolk landscape but this building houses something far more unusual. Inside is a spectacular chapel with a balcony and rows of boxed benches, in fact the cottages house an old non-conformist chapel. The building dates back to 1647 and sprang from the religious revolution of the civil war. Heretical thoughts were preached here and it had to be done in secret. It was a time of religious fervour and political insecurity, revolutionary thoughts had violently split the country and the old order was being threatened by the new,dangerous thoughts of non-conformity. Walpole's secrets are revealed to Richard by Christina, a pair of children's gloves, and an old catechism - items that reveal a glimpse of the people that still haunt the building.
Email Open Country: open.country@bbc.co.uk
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Open Country looks back 2003
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