What to see in a Country Church

London: Phoenix House. Very Good/Good. 1960. Hard Cover. Sm 4to Signed by Author FOREWORD BY THE RT. REV. THE BISHOP OF TAUNTON. Dust jacket worn in a clear protective sleeve, unclipped. Origiginal cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. Signed by the author on ffeo. Colour frontis plate. 88 pp 141 black & white plates and 7 colour plates. This is a new-style guide and study book to England's finest art gallery' : the thousands of parish churches which men have planted in our towns and villages. The approach is first, and properly, a visual one. Here is a magnificent picture-book with a minimum of explanatory text. Through its generous and colourful pages the reader will learn a lot about churches and about the aspirations of their builders, and in the process see a great many details of particular churches. Lawrence E. Jones is our guide, and under his expert tutelage we visit nearly 140 churches throughout England. First we are shown the exteriors of a representative selection of churches and, with the author's commentary, learn to appreciate the different styles and features distinguishing the areas and periods. After surveying the towers or spires, window tracery, and porches, we enter and see the roofs and vaulting and various parts of the interior. From the structure of the church we turn to the contents: fonts and pulpits, screens, monuments and brasses, the High Altar, and many other features we may well have seen previously without understanding. There are, in all, 141 black-and-white photographs plus seven in full colour, and there is a map giving the locations of all the churches illustrated. The last few illustrations are of `Some Particular Splendours'. This is a book for the car-shelf and cycle-bag as well as for the bookshelf. It gives a magnificent picture of England's past, and the visitor to country churches (many within a day's drive of London) will discover an interest which may well last a lifetime. The author is honorary lecturer to the Historic Churches Preservation Trust and honorary secretary of the Friends of Friendless Churches. .