The Friends of Friendless Churches (FoFC) is a small charity that works to save places of worship across England and Wales, many of which face abandonment and ruin as a result of shrinking populations in rural areas.

Founded in 1957 by Welsh journalist and former MP Ivor Bulmer-Thomas – a leading layman in the Church of England – the charity aims to preserve beautiful churches as public monuments that should be rightly recognised as “dispersed world heritage sites” and important components of our cultural legacy. The founding members included politician Roy Jenkins, artist John Piper, poet TS Eliot, and poet and conservation campaigner John Betjeman.

An ancient and beautiful church fulfils its primary function merely by existing. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas

According to Friends director Rachel Morley, through his vociferous campaigning Bulmer-Thomas “almost singlehandedly changed the fate of parish churches”. Having witnessed the demolition of St Peter the Less Church in Chichester in 1960, he vowed to prevent similar acts of cultural vandalism from occurring again. Bulmer-Thomas believed that “an ancient and beautiful church fulfils its primary function merely by existing. It is, in itself, and irrespective of the members using it, an act of worship. Their message is delivered – not for half hours on Sundays, but every hour of every day of every year, and not merely to those who enter, but to all who pass by.”

Though Bulmer-Thomas was himself a devoted churchgoer, the mission of the Friends is not a religious one. Morley says that “we are an architectural conservation organisation”, and the aim of the Friends is to preserve beautiful places of worship as public monuments. The churches are, according to Morley, our “greatest architectural and cultural legacy … equivalent to the great cultural treasures of places such as Tuscany, Istanbul and Andalucía.”

St Mary of the Angels, Gloucestershire, was bought from the diocese by local villagers in 2011 and will host a pop-up Christmas bar on 20 December

The 56 churches that the Friends look after range from tiny 13th-century stone cells to cavernous modern masterpieces, with a number being added to their portfolio every year. All of the buildings cared for by the Friends are in isolated countryside. “The biggest population around one of our churches is 200 people max,” says Morley. This is in part because it is easier for the Friends to keep an eye on churches away from large urban centres, but also because rural churches are the most at risk. According to a study by the Historic Religious Buildings Alliance, 9% of the 16,000 parish churches in the UK are located where just 0.33% of the population live. As rural populations age, decline and in some cases become more secular, this lack of congregation places a huge number of church buildings in jeopardy.

Nestled in woods at the corner of a farmer’s fields, St Peter’s, Llancillo, Herefordshire, boasts an 11th-century chancel and 13th-century bell

The Venerable Ambrose Mason, Archdeacon of Monmouth, says: “It is the local congregation that has the responsibility for looking after the buildings, their repair and maintenance, and if something really serious crops up – a congregation of perhaps elderly people say ‘we just can’t raise a quarter of a million pounds to repair the roof’,” so, in many cases, the decision has to be made to “walk away from the building”.

The parish churches of England and Wales contain the most important art and architecture and they are vulnerable

This often results in churches being labelled as “unviable”, after which alternative uses for them are sought by church authorities. Morley says: “In the 1950s, many were demolished, whereas now there are better systems in place within the church commissioners and the diocese for finding an outcome.” However, this often means the buildings slip out of the “shared national heritage” into private ownership – converted into private dwellings or offices with little to no public access. Archdeacon Mason says the Friends “provide a vital role in helping to preserve the more significant local churches where the congregations have dropped to a point where they are not viable”.

Morley says “These buildings are beautiful and important in and of themselves. We do not need to justify their continued existence by turning them into cafes or social security offices. The parish churches of England and Wales contain the most important art and architecture and they are vulnerable.” Many churches that are sold often appear cheap at point of purchase but due to the expense of conversion – few have electricity or water – fall into disrepair and are left locked and abandoned.

Just feet from the Great Western Canal in mid-Devon is the former private chapel of the Ayshford family, a Grade I-listed, 15th-century building with diagonal buttresses. Volunteer Julia Pound, who lives next door, describes herself as an “accidental church warden”

The Friends has a membership of 2,000 and relies on a network of 200 volunteers around the country to keep their eyes on the buildings. Julia Pound happily describes herself as an “accidental church warden” after moving in to the property next door to Ayshford Chapel, which is cared for by the Friends. She describes her role as “sweeping it out once a week and making sure it looks loved”.

In the case of St Mary the Virgin in Llanfair Kilgeddin, in Monmouthshire, the church has been cared for by a local man, Maurice Trumper, for over 25 years . The church was saved from demolition in the 1980s in what Friends chairman Roger Evans described as “a rallying point for the conservation movement” following a “tooth and nail” battle with the Church in Wales to save it. The church, an Arts and Crafts masterpiece with its original, fully restored sgrafitto paneling by George Heywood Sumner, is now the Friends’ “pride and joy”, according to Evans.

Service at St Mary the Virgin, Llanfair Kilgeddin, Monmouthshire, due for demolition in the 1980s but now the ‘pride and joy’ of the Friends of Friendless churches

Morley gives the example of the sgrafitto panels at Llanfair when describing the importance of the churches being viewed in the context of the landscapes around them. One extraordinary panel, O ye Mountains and Hills, features the landscape directly outside the church walls – the River Usk, Sugar Loaf Mountain and the tower of the nearby church of St Michael’s in Llanfihangel Gobion. Before the Friends intervention in the 1980s, the panels were scheduled to be pulled out and sent to a museum, while the rest of the building was demolished. Morley says: “The art and artwork in churches is worthy of being in any national museum. What is brilliant is that it is in context, and that could be in the middle of a field or sitting at the side of a road, and that is hugely important. Most of our churches are open 24/7 and we want the public to enjoy them and celebrate them because we are so lucky to have them.”

St Mary the Virgin in Llanfair Kilgeddin (top row) is an Arts and Crafts masterpiece and the only church in Wales to feature sgraffito on every wall. The Church of St Jerome (bottom left) is a 12th century chapel standing in the settlement of Llangwm Uchaf, Monmouthshire. A detail from the stained glass windows in St Mary of the Angels in Brownshill, Gloucestershire (bottom right)

The perseverance on behalf of the local communities surrounding the churches is demonstrated by the case of St Mary of the Angels in Brownshill, Gloucestershire, when in 2011 villagers purchased the church from the diocese and entrusted its care to the Friends in perpetuity. One of the great fears of the FoFC is that short-sighted decisions on behalf of church authorities looking to balance the books could seriously and irrevocably damage the nation’s greatest architectural legacy – removing centuries old buildings from existence or public access over the course of a single generation. Nearly half of the Grade I-listed buildings in England are churches, and around 30 are put up for sale or closed every year.

Nearly half of the Grade 1-listed buildings in England are churches, and 30 are put up for sale or closed every year

The Friends receive no public funding in England and only modest support from the Church of Wales. Otherwise, they are entirely reliant on support from their members and donations from the general public. Though many churches petition the Friends for support, they don’t have the budget to rescue all those that are in need. In fact, the organisation has a long list of churches that are under threat or that in some cases have been closed and have stood locked and deteriorating for over 12 years. “There are more churches added to our list every quarter. Some have been on this list for well over a decade,” says Morley.

The Friends stress that cared for and cherished should not mean fossilised, and instead they want offer their churches for public events such as concerts, knitting groups, seasonal lectures, art exhibitions, supper clubs and the occasional religious ceremony. They intend to carry on working tirelessly to preserve what Shakespeare described as our magnificent “sermons in stone” for generations to come.