Church Going: A Stonemason's Guide to the Churches of the British Isles

by Andrew Ziminski

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 401
Rating:

Synopsis:

An insightful and charming history of Britain's churches - by an author who spends his life working in them

Churches are many things to us - they are places of worship, vibrant community hubs and oases of calm reflection. To know a church is to hold a key to the past that unlocks an understanding of our shared history.

Andrew Ziminski has spent decades as a stonemason and church conservator, acting as an informal guide to curious visitors. Church Going is his handbook to the medieval churches of the British Isles, in which he reveals their fascinating histories, features and furnishings, from flying buttresses to rood screens, lichgates to chancels. Beautifully written and richly illustrated, it is a celebration of British architectural history.

I found Andrew Ziminski’s Church Going really soothingly disconnected from anything I have strong opinions about or really need to know, so I could just enjoy slowly making my way through it, learning some stuff, letting some stuff just go in one ear and back out of the other. It has some black and white illustrations, though now and then it could’ve benefitted from some high-quality colour illustrations in order to get a good look at details.

Mostly, it was just fun reading Ziminski’s musings about churches and working on them, and learning more about the exact functions of bits of the church I hadn’t always thought about. I did find though that it could’ve done with some more editing/proofreading — missing words, sentences that didn’t quite make sense, typos, etc. A few slipping through is pretty much bound to happen, but I found it really jumped out at me in this one.

It did also jump around a bit; sometimes he’d refer to bits of a church that he wouldn’t then define/explain until later, which was a bit irritating — there wasn’t even a page reference!

Note: there are also no numbered citations and the “further reading” section isn’t extensive. So bear that in mind, for what it’s worth.

Rating: 3/5 (“liked it”)