Wetherden, Suffolk

For the historian, Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘churchcrawling’, which he defines as the relentless pursuit of churches of all shapes and sizes just for the fun and profit of visiting them, has been a lifelong pursuit. In this essay, Diarmaid takes us to the building that he most regards as home at St Mary’s church in Wetherden, Suffolk. It’s the church that started his lifelong addiction to ‘churchcrawling’. Diarmaid grew up in the adjoining Rectory and recalls how when he arrived at the age of four in 1956, old ladies curtseyed in the street to his father as the Rector and at Christmas and Easter, the squire's gamekeeper would leave a gift pheasant at the Rectory door. It was a world now lost. Diarmaid describes how the church in Wetherden is multi-layered with history from its Saxon circular churchyard onwards, so the building tells the complete story of an average English parish church, century by century. Wetherden is where Diarmaid discovered the art of the ‘churchcrawl’ as a child, without even having to leave the comfort of his own home and it also set him on his career path, writing about the history of Christianity and the Church. Produced by Melissa FitzGerald A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 3