THE ENGLISH PARISH CHURCH – ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE
HERITAGE VISITOR ATTRACTION MARKET
ROBERT WILLIAM GIBSON
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements
of the Nottingham Trent University for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy
August 2004
ABSTRACT
This work examines a much overlooked and neglected part of the Heritage Visitor
Attraction sector – namely parish church tourism in England. An estimated 12 million
visits are made to parish churches outside normal worship and ritual. The aim of this
research is twofold. First, is to discover more about the motivational behaviour and
patterns of this large body of visitors and, secondly, to analyse the product being
offered to them and the method of its delivery.
The initial chapters constitute reviews of both the appropriate literature, the growth of
current UK heritage attraction industry and of the reasons why parish churches are
now seen as a heritage attraction resource. Also reviewed are the current extent of
parish church tourism and the likely organisations with some kind of interest in the
subject.
To carry out the research, a mixed postmodernist methodology, employing both
quantitative and qualitative methods, was adopted. Initially a typology of churches
according to tourism potential was produced. This typology was used as the guideline
for the selection of a group of fourteen churches in several parts of England for a
fieldwork study of church visits. Almost nine hundred visitors were interviewed from
May to December 2000 at the selected sites. A series of case studies was undertaken
featuring a different selection churches of widely differing characteristics and also at
different stages of development in their ability to meet visitor needs. Some further
survey work on ‘non-visitors’ was undertaken to discover why churches might not
appeal to them. This work was carried out in the vicinity of three of the sites used for
the visitor survey.
The research findings led to the production of a Classification of Church Tourists and
also a scale designed to value the location in terms of tourism potential, as location
was found to be one the key components with major influence on the attractiveness of
a church to potential tourists.
The other key component was found to be ‘resources’ of three quite different strands.
How these resources are managed and then delivered to the visitor at parish level
ii
forms a substantial part of the latter part of the work. Some wider issues pertinent to
future developments in church tourism are discussed in the closing chapter.
End
iii
INDEX
Page
ABSTRACT
ii
INDEX
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
v
PREFACE
vii
LIST OF TABLES And APPENDICES
ix
All tables are indexed with an appropriate Chapter number prefix
CHAPTER 1
1
Introduction and Literature Review
CHAPTER 2
18
A Review of the UK Heritage and Visitor Attraction Sector
CHAPTER 3
34
Church Buildings – Their Development and Role in Heritage Tourism
CHAPTER 4
47
The Methodology and Research Design
CHAPTER 5
75
Church Tourism – From Medieval Pilgrimage to Present Practice
CHAPTER 6
127
Developing a Typology of Churches according to Tourism Potential
CHAPTER 7
149
The Pilot Study Survey
CHAPTER 8
163
The Fieldwork and Analysis of Results
CHAPTER 9
205
Church Tourism Case Studies
CHAPTER 10
221
A Classification of Church Visitors and the Importance of Church Location
CHAPTER 11
235
Current Issues and Practice in Church Tourism Service Delivery
CHAPTER 12
270
The Future Concerns of Parish Church Tourism
BIBLIOGRAPHY
281
GLOSSARY followed by APPENDICES
308
iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study could not have been completed without assistance from many sources and
individuals. Its roots stem from work undertaken for a Masters Degree in 1994-5,
when I realised that there was a largely unknown and hugely undeveloped heritage
tourist source in thousands of parish churches throughout the UK.
This subject was also of considerable interest to my Masters Degree supervisor, now
the Reverend Professor Myra Shackley, Head of the Centre for Visitor Management
at the Nottingham Business School. She was an obvious person to take on the main
supervisory role this PhD study of parish church tourism. I am most grateful to Myra
for all the help, advice, and encouragement in the several years of both this work and
the previous study.
I must also thank Professor David Airey of the University of Surrey, whom I had
known from the time I was a former FE representative on the Committee of
Association of Teacher and Trainers in Tourism. It was David who first introduced
me to Myra and the Nottingham Business School in 1994. Without that crucial
introduction my academic progress of the last decade may never have occurred.
Thanks are also due to other Nottingham Business School staff, especially to Dr.
Sophie Turley, initially second supervisor and to Dr. Colin Fisher for his most useful
guidance paper on the transfer procedure from M.Phil. to PhD registration. Thanks
also to all staff from the Research Methods course delivered to PhD & DBA
candidates, often in a thought-provoking manner. For external part time candidates
the School Research Administrator is a vital link and, throughout the research, first
Ruth, and then, Melanie, have both been invaluable sources of help through the detail
of the necessary administration.
Library staff at both the University’s Clifton and City libraries have always been most
helpful, both on site and by telephone. Other libraries consulted at varying stages of
the research include Loughborough University, De Montfort University, the Picton
Library in Liverpool, and local libraries in Blackburn, Loughborough, Hinckley,
Nottingham, Nuneaton and Warwick.
v
The fieldwork was totally dependent on the permission and co-operation of the
fourteen church sites. The assistance and support of everyone at these sites is much
appreciated, both clergy and laity. Among the clergy who offered advice and interest
with the fieldwork were the Reverends, Dr.Stephen Cherry at Loughborough, Canon
Bollard at Coleshill, Father Philip Wells at Polesworth and Martin Charles at Breedon
on the Hill. Lay members whose assistance was invaluable include the two city
vergers at Manchester and Nottingham, Theo Mayfield, Verger at St.Mary, Melton
Mowbray, who contributes so much to the Framland Trail group of churches and John
Firsby, Church Warden at the small Leicestershire parish of Fenny Drayton. Also
contributing feedback from outside the University to parts of the thesis was the
Reverend Paul Bond, the then Chair of the National Churches Tourism Group.
Finally are some more personal reflections. First, I express a sincere note of thanks to
Cheryl for her several years of tolerance. During the latter part of this study, she
became my wife, notwithstanding repeated excursions to a plethora of usually empty
churches since 1996 together with enduring ‘enforced’ reading of reams of prose and
the piles of books in every nook and cranny of the house. Secondly, I must also
recognise the very fine school education I was fortunate enough to experience many
years ago at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Blackburn; a school then blessed
with, often eccentric, but very fine, teachers, who sowed seeds of scholarship now
belatedly coaxed to fruition by the Reverend Professor Myra Shackley.
vi
PREFACE
Religion, spiritual expression and ritual have been a part of the social pattern since
recorded human existence. Its forms and manifest expression may differ widely
among different groupings of people, but its durability has been frequently
demonstrated to be more robust than the varied secular forces and political ideologies
which contrive to bring order to the human condition.
The freedom and ability to travel from one place to another is another basic, long held
and highly valued aspect of the human psyche. The desire for travel has been
motivated by different human needs at varying epochs of history. Within the last two
centuries, aided by immense technological leaps in transportation and apparent social
prosperity, this basic desire has been stimulated as never before.
Although it can be argued that some aspects of modern tourism have more empathy
with mammon than the spiritual replenishment of the soul, it is inevitable that these
two human instincts, the practice of religion and the desire to travel should intersect
and interact with each other. The idea of pilgrimage is perhaps the most obvious
outward manifestation, but there are other regions of overlap too, especially in the
contemporary and fashionable area of cultural and heritage tourism. This research is
devoted to exploring one of these areas of overlap.
The practice of Christianity in the British Isles for almost two millennia has
bequeathed to its constituent regions a distinctive cultural legacy. A major part of this
inheritance is the thousands of parish churches, each individual in development,
content and history, to be found in almost every community. The church building is
often the oldest edifice within its community and as such throws out tentacles to the
far reaches of that community’s development.
The growth in cultural, heritage and ‘nostalgia’ tourism and its associated search for
‘a past’ is a widely recognised characteristic of the contemporary tourism industry. It
is estimated that over 12 million visits (for non-worship purposes) are made to
English parish churches every year, but little is really known about those visitors. It is
one of the least researched and least organised facets of the current tourism spectrum.
vii
This study aims to something of the reasons for these visits and whether established
methods of tourism service delivery are relevant to the needs of these visitors.
viii
LIST OF TABLES
page
2.1
The Growth in National Trust Membership 1895-2003
20
2.2
Some Key Events relevant to Heritage Preservation and Conservation in the
United Kingdom since World War II
22
3.1
Membership of the Major Recognised Religions in England 1970-1990
45
4.1
A Summary of Methodological Approaches in the Social Sciences
49
4.2
Recognised Methods of Social Research in terms of Suitability for a
Church Tourism Hypothesis
4.3
51
A Comparison of Churches as Visitor Attractions with other Man-made
Heritage Visitor Attractions
57
4.4
Quantitative Analysis – Key Lines of Enquiry
65
4.5
Motivational and Information Source Analysis – Key Lines of Enquiry
71
4.6
Key Service Delivery Elements
72
5.1
Major Shrines of Medieval Pilgrimage in the United Kingdom
76
5.2
A List of English Parish Churches returning Estimates of Visitor Figures
86
5.3
Organisations with an Interest in Parish Church Tourism
101
5.4
English Heritage – Allocation of Grants by Sector
112
5.5
A Statistical Comparison of selected Anglican Dioceses
120
6.1
A Proposed Classification of Churches based on Tourism
Service Delivery
6.2
131
A Typology of Churches by Tourism Potential – Based on
the Historical Development of the Community
137
7.1
A Summary of the Pilot Study at St. Oswald, Ashbourne
150
7.2
Pilot Study: Normal Place of Residence
151
7.3
Pilot Study: Place of Origin on Day of Visit for those Respondents
7.4
not travelling from Normal Place of Residence
152
Pilot Study: Mode of Travel to Church
153
ix
7.5a
Pilot Study: Major Place of Visit Today – ‘Yes’ Respondents
154
7.5b
Pilot Study: Major Place of Visit Today – ‘No’ Respondents
154
7.6
Pilot Study: Planned or Opportunistic Visits
154
7.7
Pilot Study: Repeat Visits
154
7.8a
Pilot Study: Chief Reason for Visit (based on prompt card)
156
7.8b
Pilot Study: Non-Anticipated Reasons given for Visit
156
7.9
Pilot Study: Main Source of Information about Church prior to Visit
157
7.10
Pilot Study: Record of Purchases made by Visitors
157
7.11a Pilot Study: Membership of Heritage Organisations (incl.Overseas)
158
7.11b Pilot Study- Membership of Heritage Organisations (UK only)
158
7.12
Pilot Study: Visitor Profile by Age Group
159
7.13
Pilot Study: Visitor Profile by Occupation
160
7.14
Pilot Study: Visitor Profile – Self-Classification
161
8.1
Target Interviews by Typology Classification
163
8.2
List of Churches contacted for permission to use as survey sites
166
8.3
Summary of Interviews Conducted
180
8.4
Distance from normal Place of Residence
181
8.5
Distance travelled on Day of visit
181
8.6
Analysis of Overseas Visitor Origin by Country
182
8.7
Age & Gender Profile by Site
184
8.8
Analysis of modes of Transport to Church
185
8.9
The Church as ‘Primary Visit’
186
8.9a
The Primary Motivation for the Journey
187
8.10
Analysis of Planned / Opportunistic Visits and Repeat Visits by site
188
8.11
Analysis of motivation to visit the Church
189
8.12
Analysis of major sources of Prior Information given by Respondents
191
8.13
Analysis of Visitor Book Use & Signatories
192
8.14
Analysis of Purchases made by Visitors
192
8.15
Analysis of Refreshment Purchases (where available)
193
8.16
Analysis of Membership of Heritage Organisations
194
8.17
Suggestions for Improvement – Analysis of Responses
195
8.18
Visitor Classification by Socio-economic grouping
197
8.19
Analysis of Self-description by respondents
198
x
8.20
Breakdown of Interviews with Non-Visitors to Churches
201
8.21
Analysis of Reasons Offered for Non-Visits to Churches
201
8.22
Non-Visitors – Stated Main Purpose of Journey
203
10.1
A Classification of Church Visitor
222
10.2
Classification of Church Visitor applied to Fieldwork Sample
225
10.3
Church Location – Micro-geographic influences
229
10.4
Church Location – Measurement of Visitor Attractiveness –
Thesis Survey Sites
233
11.1
Church Interpretation – Key Elements
252
11.2
Opening A Church for Visitors – Modelled on Schmenner’s Service
Encounter Concept
260
11.3
Classification of Church Visitor – Adapted to Schmenner Service Models 261
11.4
Tourism Development for a Small Parish Church – The Basic Steps
264
11.5
Meeting Service Standards – Using Uzell’s Definitions of Interpretation
269
LIST OF APPENDICES
1. List of Organisations with a Potential Interest in Parish Church Tourism
2. Copy of Questionnaire / Survey Form used for Fieldwork
3. Copy of Questionnaire / Form used for Non-Visitor Survey
4. Diary and Record of Fieldwork – May to December 2000
5. Record of Personal Visits to Parish Churches – Autumn 1996 – Autumn 2001
6. Opening the Church for Tourism Purposes – Issues for Consideration
7. Tourism Development for a Small Parish Church – The Basic Steps
xi