Religious conversions

With half the kingdom now designated by New Labour as a grey Lego baseboard to press soul-less plastic bricks into, there is an ever-growing demand for properties of age and character. Homes made from redundant churches or chapels are blessed with both. One of the prayers that used to be recited in the most ancient of them was ‘Domine, dilexi decorum domus tuae’: ‘I have loved, O Lord, the beauty of Thy house.’ It could be said by many house-hunters today.

FPD Savills’ Cambridge office is selling one of the most striking examples of contemporary religious conversion: ‘A magnificent Grade II*-listed former parish church arranged in the traditional chancel and nave configuration, believed to date from the mid-13th and later 14th century. Hall, kitchen/dining room, magnificent vaulted lounge with vaulted chancel arch and stained-glass windows, four bedrooms, each with en-suite facilities.’

I wonder what those mediaeval parishioners would say if they were to see the nave of their Huntingdonshire church now, after it has been ‘fitted with an extensive range of oak wall and base units with under-pelmet lighting, roll-top work surfaces with tiled splash-backs, and an inset six-ring Smeg stainless steel gas hob’. I don’t imagine they ever thought that one day crème brulées would be blow-torched where their votive candles once burned. But they have long since gone to their reward, and the church they went to Mass in is up for sale for the best part of half a million pounds. Indeed, at the time of writing, it is under offer.