B&W gallery: Covehithe Church

Suffolk has a lot of churches like this. In medieval times, the export trade in wool to the

continent, mostly via the country's second-largest port at the time, Dunwich, on the Suffolk

coast, made many of the land-owning classes very rich. They often spent their money

looking after their family's spiritual needs at the time by building parish churches and setting

up bequests for the continual benefit of their local community or individuals. When cheaper

wool from the Americas began to flood the market, and later when cheaper cloth from the

east via European traders had a major impact on our native industry, the churches fell into

disrepair and the great wool estates collapsed.

Later still, as the industrial revolution drew workers off the land into the sweatshops and

factories of the midlands, the once-prosperous region of East Anglia, the breadbasket of the

country, struggled to survive the depopulation, and the churches suffered as well. Coastal

erosion has also played its part in the loss of many communities, most notably that of

Dunwich itself, whose church is now under the North Sea.

Suffolk has a lot of churches like this. In medieval times, the export trade in wool to the

continent, mostly via the country's second-largest port at the time, Dunwich, on the Suffolk

coast, made many of the land-owning classes very rich. They often spent their money looking

after their family's spiritual needs at the time by building parish churches and setting up

bequests for the continual benefit of their local community or individuals. When cheaper wool

from the Americas began to flood the market, and later when cheaper cloth from the east via

European traders had a major impact on our native industry, the churches fell into disrepair and

the great wool estates collapsed.

Later still, as the industrial revolution drew workers off the land into the sweatshops and

factories of the midlands, the once-prosperous region of East Anglia, the breadbasket of the

country, struggled to survive the depopulation, and the churches suffered as well. Coastal

erosion has also played its part in the loss of many communities, most notably that of Dunwich

itself, whose church is now under the North Sea.

St Andrews, Covehithe