The Parish Church Photographic Survey
The most comprehensive photographic documentation of parish churches ever undertaken.
The Parish Church Photographic Survey is documenting in detail every rural Church of England parish church in England, forming a national photographic archive of unparalleled scope. Each church is photographed comprehensively, with coverage including:
- All monuments to 1900
- All pre-1800 stained glass
- All pre-1800 brasses
- All fonts
- All hatchments and royal arms
- All wall paintings (pre- and post-Reformation)
- All pre-1800 pulpits and seating
- All west galleries
- 19th-century stained glass noted in the Buildings of England
The survey now encompasses nearly 10,000 churches and over 500,000 images, making it the largest photographic archive of English church art and architecture in Europe — and quite possibly the world.1
The archive will eventually contain over 600,000 images. Progress reports and statistics are published in the Annual Reports.
1 Photographic archives such as the National Monuments Record contain more images in aggregate, but these have been built up from donated collections and include numerous duplicate records of the same subjects.
The Parish Church Photographic Survey 