Parish Churches App

Parish Churches gives you the ability to search and browse the archive of the Parish Church Photographic Survey, a unique photographic project that is documenting in detail all of the rural parish churches in England.

Using Parish Churches you can search for churches and their contents using over 500 keywords, dates and periods, the names of benefactors or people commemorated, and the artists and architects responsible for the churches and works of art.

The app currently gives access to over 51,000 pictures covering over 1000 churches. Work is continually underway to make available additional material from the source archive of over 502,000 pictures covering 9000 churches.

The app has been designed for use on tablets or phones, although display on a tablet is preferred due to the greater screen space available.

You can download the app for free from the Google Play Store. Free functionality includes person search (for genealogical use) and mapping. Full functionality, including images and site details, requires a subscription which you can take out for varying renewal periods: £2.99 weekly, £4.99 monthly, or £44.99 yearly (excluding VAT). Download Parish Churches.

For announcements and discussion about the app please join the Parish Churches App Google Group.

Using Parish Churches: Example 1 - Selecting a church

You can very easily select churches displayed on a map. When you tap on a church marker the app displays a page showing the details about the church: information about its architecture, associated people such as architects, and the date ranges for the various parts. Click on the images to enlarge them.

Using Parish Churches: Example 2 - Searching for a type of church

The Search page allows you to search for churches or subjects by various attributes. In this example we have searched for churches in Cambridgeshire that have bellcotes and were built in the 19th century by selecting the appropriate date range and adding the Bellcote keyword.

Using Parish Churches: Example 3 - Searching for all 12th century fonts

Switching the Search page tab to Subjects, we can select the date range to cover the 12th century and add the Fonts keyword.

Using Parish Churches: Example 4 - Searching for churches by George Edmund Street

The People Search page allows searching for the architects, artists, or those commemorated on monuments. Here we have typed in Street's surname and selected his entry, then searched for churches - those either restored or designed by him.

These are just a small sample of the possible searches that can be performed. The app also has the ability to display the results of searches on the map.