 yng Nghymru, Peterborough, ac y Bishop of Peter's Palace is about there. The population of Darsis began to expand in the 1970s, with London over Spill and Mauritius. Darsis began to expand due to the phenomenal expansion of Kingbridge. The ffens themselves have been less affected, although Ely's population will double to 25,000 by 2021. For the last two years, the number of people attending Church of England churches in the Darsis has steadily risen, although of course it remains a small percentage of the population. Liturgically, the move to worship amongst the people has, as elsewhere, led to the introduction of naveltas, often as here at Yaxley, in front of a chancell screen, which continues to be seen by congregations, and quite correctly of course as a barrier. It was of course precisely for this reason that a navelta was introduced at Canterbury Cathedral in the early 1930s. It is not well known. What does that mean? Well, for this particular project, the altar is on a new platform in an area cleared of pews. They have got an electronic organ here, and I'm not going to talk about electronic versus pipe organs. It's too late in the day. An amplification, you can see the little speaker down there, but there are actions from the aisle roofs, which of course is also to do with an electric band, electric guitars and things. There is a drop down screen which is there, not drop down at the moment, which is attached to Temple Moor's gallery. This is a medieval screen, but this is all Temple Moor, but there's some very good furniture by him and the chancell. The chancell, as you can see, is quite unaffected by all this. The pulpit here has remained. Unfortunately, its base is sort of buried in the platform, but it's perfectly safe. It hasn't been chopped off or anything like that. The pulpit is used. This is fairly rare, I think, nowadays. Many priests want to just stand and deliver from their pulpit, from the platform. In terms of screens and projectors, these are quite, become quite an issue. Holy Trinity don't have a screen, which they can attach, a fixed screen that they can attach a screen to. The way the church works, two screens for me, so you do get these rather large screens put up. And of course, the projectors, which here are on their own screens, but in other places the projectors are attached to the arcades. The security, as many of you know, is bang in the middle of Cambridge, and is usually closed because of all this equipment that's all around, and the security risk of it being left. Given the number of buskers in Cambridge, I think that's probably quite right. We've tried to get parishes to install retractable screens in places where they won't be visually affected. Of course, this is what was Greed Alton, so that's where the screen is. But unfortunately, they find it a bit of an imposition to keep opening and closing them, so they tend to remain open. What you can also see here at Alton is the amplification system, some of the speakers here. Amplification is quite a common application to us. You would have thought that having brought the priest down from the chancel into the body of the church, it would be easy enough, with the loop system perhaps, but there we are. First, we've tried to make sure those speakers are in places that are inconspicuous as possible, and not attached to the piers. This is Woy's Church near Huntingdon, a church stripped of its plaster by Inskit Lads fellow of the Antichries in the 1920s. A little bit late, but William Morris took a bit of a while to get into the fence. Here at Warboys, these are the screens. There's the screen there, and there, creating an architectural feature that doesn't exist. These are the speakers at the moment. They are about to be moved up, and a new system is going in and will be hung from our roof. These are the projectors, of course. What Warboys has is a local band. You can just see it there. To accommodate them, this area of the east end of the south is where the platform has been extended. That's where the band equipment is kept. The pews have been removed, and there are now stacking chairs and flexible space. There's the little children's area over there. The problem with creating flexible spaces is that you've got to do something with the chairs and if you take them away, you end up with this sort of thing. Obviously, that only occurs when the space is cleared. There's the projects which are held onto the columns by bands placed around the top and up there. All are obviously eminently removable. This is a St Bennett's in Cambridge. You probably know it for its sacks and tower, rather than the interior. We recommended that the speakers were placed up in the aisles, but the Chancellor ruled against us. These speakers are now hung onto the pillars. Notice particularly this one, which is next to the pulpit. From which the incumbent insisted she needed to have. The conservative approach into the toilet inside the church, along with the needing as much nave seating as possible, led to a few extensions being built in the Darsis in the late 20th century. Places like Willingham and the Moorimpington, Melbourne. They are spent and opposition from some local authority planners, but also the parish church itself, a social, the wider community, has now encouraged parishes to concentrate their social facilities within the church. The initial creation of team-making facilities is often rather makeshift. As you can see here at Tillbrooke, where some of the pews at the back have been removed and planks are put across it to make a table and things like that. At All Saints Huntingdon, where unfortunately chairs and coffee tables have started to come in. But their inadequacy, of course, quickly leads to a discussion of permanent installations. The base of the tower, or that chapel, are often the first port of call for such extra facilities. And as ever, money, dry appearance of these projects. And there are, I have to say, some sad examples to be seen around the Darsis. I can't say I particularly like the design of either of these tower infills, but they are well built and have left the arch clearly visible, which is perhaps the most important point architecturally. But of course design expectations are often not high. Actions of these schemes are not the Oxbridge educated priest or local squire of old, but a democratically elected PCC. And in most of them, hardly anyone has any experience of furnishing and historic building and certainly not one of this scale. Essentially, people's experiences of domestic interiors, and that is the sort of thing they're looking to apply inside churches. The most common initial approach anyway is to create a tea cupboard, a chin and a storage area, as here, Housingfield, at the back end of the One Isle, where at least, in this case at least, there are enough storage has been considered in the first place as part of the need to make a decent enough area, which is usually kept just as this. Other places aren't quite so organised, usually because they just haven't understood what they need have for making tea and the occasions for which this facility is going to be used. This was a night game when it started in that that is the lid that folds down onto this cupboard, so that's all you would have seen. Unfortunately, they bought a new urn, and so to screen the rest of the church, someone kindly donated one of these halo boards from pin boards that came from somewhere, and of course needed to say it's attracted notices, so on the other side, and this is all the stuff that is needed, which is where the intention of things start to fall by the wayside, and what's been said earlier on about management of these facilities is so important. The other larger unit perhaps is the concept of the pod, the pods of the first pine, perhaps at All Saints, Hereford, the glass pods that were done there have come up many other places. Autumn Waterville is one of about half a dozen autons to the west of Peterborough. It was a little, very small, rural church, but is now entirely surrounded by 1970s housing. It has got a west tower, but it's just got a door, which is just too small for wheelchair access, so in all intents and purposes, the base of the tower was ruled out here, and there's no chapels. This is what they had, a tea table here, a curtain off vestry behind there, a font surrounded by stuff and a motley collection of chairs. They embarked on creating a pod at the southwest corner, replacing that vestry, so the pod now opens up to be a servery there, which has more storage in this piece of furniture which moves back against there when it's not in use. The door at the back leads you through in town here, there's all the electric through all in that cupboard, and then both lined with these cupboards that incorporate the heating units as well for storage for all the various functions and the things that they want to pursue. Lighting, there was a track system that was put in, which I think works quite well, but I know some people don't like it. Of course, these are all very, as I say, rather domestic sort of things, and the pod originally wasn't going to come through the arcade and that was the drawing we approved. During construction, it grew, and of course, the idea that you might go back to the parish, who are obviously extremely proud of their pod, and ask them to shave a foot off it, isn't going to happen, which is a pity, but otherwise that's quite a successful scheme in a church to say which has no subsidiary spaces. An even smaller church is Sutton at Peterborough, a village, I don't know, might have 200 people in it, perhaps. No community building at all, no pub, no nothing, no shock. And the church, as you can see here, it's a small nave with just a two bay isle south isle there. So it hasn't got up tower, but the western bay has now been filled with a toilet and a servery, and then the space, the nave space, has been cleared of the pews, and where the pub platforms were, tiles put in which are just like the original tiles, which went up the centre. So even a very small church, they've managed to get in these sort of facilities, and it does function well in Sutton, as I say, as the only community building. It has to be said they were already using the church for various non-worship funds. This has made it much easier for them to use, and that sense has been a success. As you can see, the problem of heating has yet to be solved, and basically these old filled radiators are placed behind you when you sit at the table or wherever. Another more recent move has been to add a porch, which is actually the toilet, a kitchen, or sink area really, and in this case it's a new boiler as well, hence this large chimney. But this has succeeded with planners, local authority planners, who have felt happier to accede to this and then make a new addition to the church. That's threatened nearly the concept of the toilet and survey has gone further in that they've also created a warm meeting space. It's quite a big church. The village I suppose is about 2,000 strong. It's quite large. They cleared the west end of the church of the pews and glazed in the end of the South Isle and filled in the bottom of the tower with that's the servery, you can just see the shelf. There's the door when it opens. This door opens and goes through to the top of the back. The bells are now rung from the gallery up here and there's a new door into that space from the spiral stair, which I think is a new door here. In other place old doors that used to go to galleries, perhaps removed in the 9th century, have been reopened. This is a nice cosy heated room. I have to say that since this project is completed, there haven't been any new community uses in the church and essentially these new facilities are for fellowship after church on a Sunday and PCC meeting here. Although there are occasional other groups that use it, they certainly haven't been able to attract new groups. Elm near Whizbeach is one of our great marshland churches, which despite the fact it's huge, is a series of magnificent spaces. It was very hard to see how this would work to create a warm meeting area and the individual toilets. The last two bays of the South Isle were what remained of a, well it wasn't a family pew because the family certainly didn't sit here, but a family vault, which was under this raised platform of which had unequal steps. This is about 10 inches and that's about 7 inches. It's sort of a hazard waiting to happen. This space was, as you can see here, not very useful to the parish in terms of the worship use. Behind the main door, which is here, the south door, decided to investigate what this morsley vault looked like to see if this area could be partitioned off. A hole was made and cameras put down. It was discovered that there were about half a dozen coffins down there. The vault itself was a shallow brick vault that was a long way above the coffins. It was agreed that the segmental brick vault would be removed and replaced by flat beams, which did not disturb any of the coffins at all, and a new unit glazed area created at the back. This is looking west. It's got a magnificent west town. Clearly, this space was not one to be endeared with. This has just been completed. This space was already cleared of our space and the toilet is over here. Whether this will bring in any new uses, I don't know the fact that they sold their church hall, which had ceased to be used for about five years through dilapidation, which helped fund this project, which is a familiar scenario, means that the continuity of use had lost, so the parish had now got to work up new uses and be interested to see how they get on. At West Walton, I'm sure you all know, the solution to creating a warm space for worship particularly was to put an enormous theatre curtain behind the chance larch, so this is looking west. When this is dropped, the council then has a chance of getting heated and the small congregation there is there can feel a little more cosy, at least in the winter. At the moment, there are proposals to do something at the west end of the church, which we will see how that develops. Curtaining is in place in two or three churches. It's not cheap. You might think you're putting up curtains that cheap, but these are quite a serious bit of engineering, but it is effective. Other places have wanted to expand and at least autumn Longville persevered and got through this addition. This is the North Isle, to which they've added this meeting room with an access that comes through the North Door. This is the north chapel of the offices of Huntley, who owned the enormous house that's next door to the church, just to the west here now. We have to say, we're always rather, as a DAC, we expect as to what can get out of this, because when you look inside, it's basically a very small room. There's that big window. That's the Isle, that's the board. They've basically got a meeting room, which is used essentially for PCC meetings, and the way the costs went, it's about £15,000 per member. However, they are very pleased with it. We would rather they had spent time sorting out the Huntley Chapel with all its clutter, which, of course, is endemic to all parish churches. Perhaps this is quite extreme. For Sally, it might like to know that the helm is still up there, securely held onto this monument. The concept of clutter, and creating welcoming, warm, cosy spaces, really comes home when you're dealing with children. Of course, the great aim of all churches is to get the young people in. For children, the minimum is a thick carpet for them to sit on, and these miniature chairs and tables, which are always very interesting. The comfy chairs, of course, are for the mothers. And the piano. Well, there we are. There is one church in Darsis with three pianos in its children's corner. A particular that's coming to the fore in our Darsis are memorial chapels for World War II aircraftmen. Of course, East Angliau is littered with former aerodromes, and there's a great deal of tourism in terms of both Americans bringing over their grandchildren and the like to see where they were in the war. And this is one of the pathfinder chapels, the pathfinder, what's it called? A pathfinder, something like that. And of course, the DAC were happy to have the permission for the memorial altar and the Book of Remembrance and a flag. But you can see stuff has turned up, like pictures and many things. And a new window. Again, they gave a faculty for the window. Yes. I want to sort of, just with a particular case, I will sort of bring all this sort of together. Little Paxton is a very small village that's now been sort of absorbed by St Neats. It's just north of St Neats. And completely surrounded by modern housing. You may have heard of it because of its early 12th century tympanum with these sort of bizarre crudes of creatures on them. Or you may have heard of it because in the churchyard, John Buonorotti Papworth, architect to the King of Wyrtonburg, is buried. His sister happened to, he happened to die at his sisters and she lived in the parish. It's a grand medieval west tower, a nave with a forebay south isle and a small chancel. It was essentially rebuilt in the 1840s one way or another. This arcade has been taken down at least once, not twice. And this was the situation. The parish were keen to make the church more of a social centre for the community as being an older community. There weren't 106 agreements for community hall and that sort of thing. So there is this large housing estate with no communal facilities. The parish priest here was very keen for the church to fulfil that role. It was a very radical scheme, clearing the whole thing out. Under the carpet was found ledgers and it's a rather nice pall but unfortunately rather wrecked by the adhesive of the carpet in the past. We had thought that moving the pub would be a chance for some archaeological investigation to quite find out why that early 12th century tympanynum was there. But unfortunately, we don't know, 50s, 60s, the whole of the pub platform had been filled up with concrete and this has been removed but it was only need to be removed to a depth to allow some underfloor heating to go in so there was no requirement for any archaeology there. The south porch already had a toilet attached to it. The lower part of the tower was enclosed to make a small meeting space and the tower was renovated in the bells and a new ring floor created. That's what the church looks like now. The pub is replaced by chairs, the carpet has been replaced by carpet tiles and pick them up and look at the ledgers if you wish. It's all been fully recorded and the parish are very happy with it. It cost about 450,000 in all, grants more sorts of people, including they won 50,000 from some local talent competition. The parish now have all they think they need to promote their mission, furthering the kingdom of God and their wish to bring people into their building for community events. I secretly hope they won't be too successful because the building can't be expanded without quite a bit of difficulty, although it wouldn't perhaps be impossible. This is precisely what many congregations want their church to look like and to function today, reversing the ecclesiologist and tractarian concepts of sacred space. The next one on the horizon is Gamelingay, where that's a DAC meeting, in fact, where we are contemplating what they're going to do with this one. The general public, of course, have yet to catch up with these ideas and it is usually the non-worshippers that object to the removal of the pews. We've been told by some churches that they've lost weddings because the bride now walks up a carpeted aisle flanked by stackable chairs and not the pews she was expecting. Are we actually losing anything of real value? In terms of the fabric, I hope the answer there is quite firmly no because of the care the DAC take in making sure these alterations are not damaging. Nearly all the fabric changes can be reversed. Great St Mary's is about to remove some of the concrete flaws that were introduced in about 1970. Archaeologically in Ely, we are very lucky to have a very active consultant who carries out watching briefs himself in his own time, but he writes briefs and commissions others to carry out some more intensive recording work. Just recently, we found a small doorway at the west end of the south aisle of Horningsey Church, which seems to have led to an anchorite cell or something. It's quite interesting. Parishes, of course, object to the expense of archaeology, but in our recent experience at least, they have stuck to the rules, but we do rely very much on that one consultant. If he's available, I'm not quite sure where we would be. Of course, once the fittings, like pews and Victorian pulpits, have been removed, they won't come back. We always request at least a photographic record, if not the retention of examples. Much of this new technology that's coming in, the sound systems, the heating and that sort of thing, has a life of less than 15 years, I suspect, and I'm not sure how we know how long veneered MDF will last. The character of the interiors, of course, is clearly being altered, but surely this is reflecting current tate and worship preferences as internal changes always have. Of course, that indefinable quality that Crispin described earlier on, whether we call it the patina of age or a numinous character, that is likely to be lost in the wealth of pet, which can make churches indistinguishable from a doctor's surgery, or even some sort of domestic interior, but of course that is what people are wanting to have. I suggest that something like Little Paxson will become readily identified by future ecclesiologists and architectural historians as typical work of the early decades of the 21st century. Whether this will then be considered a good or a bad period remains to be seen. Thank you.