Glamping is so last year – it’s time to go ‘champing’
Camping in churches (or ‘champing’) is soaring in popularity –and helping to save historic buildings
IT may not have the glitz of Glastonbury glamping, the privacy of a B&B or the offerings of a hotel room minibar.
Yet the rising popularity of “champing” – church camping – means that increasing numbers of historic churches across the country are signing up to a scheme enabling guests to sleep under belfrys, stained glass windows and ancient steeples.
The idea was launched in 2016 by the Churches Conservation Trust (CCT), the national charity protecting churches at risk, and offers guests looking for a quirky getaway the opportunity to camp overnight in the historic buildings. CCT experts described champing as “an innovative way” of enticing Christian and secular people alike into the buildings and thereby ensuring that they “don’t die on our watch”.
Guests can currently champ in 18 historic churches across England, at sites ranging from St Peter’s Church, in Wolfhampcote, a remote 14th-century building in an abandoned village between the counties of Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, to St Leonard’s in Old Langho, Lancashire, built in the reign of Queen Mary I.
The CCT revealed its plans for expansion after claiming that last year generated record income for the charity. It now plans to expand its franchise operation across the country with at least a further 12 churches to be added to the champing catalogue and “the groundwork being laid for more expansion in future seasons”.
In papers submitted before the General Synod, the Church of England’s law making body, the CCT revealed that the past year was “particularly successful”. It added that champing saw the strongest performance since its launch and generated over £86,000 of net revenue against almost 600 bookings. It also drew in more than 250 CCT members over the same period.
Reverend Canon Timothy Goode, who is on the CCT’S Board of Trustees, said book clubs, yoga and fitness groups were all popular activities now held in churches in order to provide community cohesion, and champing is just an extension of that. He said: “Champing comes absolutely out of that very Anglican understanding of serving the needs of the whole community and being there for all people.
“It’s just another way in which that permission is offered for people to come and enjoy these buildings, and explore them, and also have a bit of fun while they’re at it because it is quite a novel experience to sleep overnight in a very ancient church building.”
The champing statistics come as the Church of England is grappling with declining congregations and is struggling to remain in line with modern views on issues such as sexuality. In
‘It comes from that very Anglican idea of serving the community’
November, it revealed that Christians now account for less than half of England and Wales’ population for the first time in census history and last week bishops refused to back same-sex marriage and instead decided to offer blessings to couples who already had a civil partnership.
Rev Canon Goode said the CCT’S aim with champing was to “ensure that these buildings continue to have a life of service” to the community, despite them no longer being used as places or worship. He added: “It could actually maybe help to articulate a new story, a new chapter in that church’s life.
“It could be that a new Christian community is formed. Well, that would be wonderful... It may become a place where people hold book clubs and yoga and keep fit and other things, that would also be wonderful. And one of the great Christian callings is to build a loving, flourishing community.”
Around 45 per cent of England’s Grade-i listed buildings are Church of England cathedrals and churches.
Janet Gough, a former trustee of the CCT, and former director of Cathedrals and Church Buildings for the Church of England, said it was important to encourage non-christians into churches so that the historic buildings “don’t die on our watch”.
Have you ever been champing? That is not a misprint. Champing is staying overnight in a church, so-called “sleepovers with soul”. They are arranged by the Churches Conservation Trust to raise money for historic buildings under threat and the scheme has been so successful that it is being expanded. Champers get exclusive use of the church and venues range from medieval village sites to more recent Victorian places of worship. They include the Kent church in whose graveyard Pip meets Magwitch in Great Expectations. In the Middle Ages, anchorites would stay for years incarcerated in church cells, receiving food and water through holes in the wall. Champing is not quite as ascetic as that but the floors might be a bit cold.