All Saints’ Church, Pontefract

All Saints’ Church in Pontefract was the town's original parish church till both sides in the civil wars took turns at blasting it to smithereens. The shell remains ruined, but a 1960s development in the nave resulted in a small church building within those older walls. Sadly, it was locked when I called; though I generally despise sixties’ architecture, I increasingly enjoy the contrast between the old and new.

Somehow, this peculiar little architectural arrangement now seems to sum up the Church of England. The bulk of it is long gone, ruinous and dilapidated, the haunt of crows and worse. Yet there are pockets of believers, rightly or wrongly, sheltering among those ruins, faithfully meeting together, despite the giant skeleton all around them and not because of it. While these inner, beating organs may eventually succumb to the weaknesses and decay of the wider body, they keep going, for the present.

A. D