Steeple Chasing cover art

Steeple Chasing

Around Britain by Church

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Steeple Chasing

By: Peter Ross
Narrated by: Peter Ross
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends December 16, 2025 11:59pm GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Only £0.99 a month for the first 3 months. Pay £0.99 for the first 3 months, and £8.99/month thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Start my membership

About this listen

 From the author of A Tomb With a View - a celebration of the weird and wonderful churches of Britain

Churches are all around us. Their steeples remain landmarks in our towns, villages and cities, even as their influence and authority has waned. They contain art and architectural wonders - one huge gallery scattered, like a handful of jewels, across these isles.

Award-winning writer Peter Ross sets out to tell their stories, and through them a story of Britain. Join him as he visits the unassuming Norfolk church which contains a disturbing secret, and London's mighty cathedrals with their histories of fire and love. Meet cats and bats, monks and druids, angels of oak and steel.

Steeple Chasing, though it sometimes strikes an elegiac note, is a song of praise. It celebrates churches for their beauty and meaning, and for the tales they tell. It is about people as much as place, flesh and bone not just flint and stone. From the painted hells of Surrey to the holy wells of Wales, consider this a travel book . . . with bells on.

Praise for Peter Ross

'Ross is a wonderfully evocative writer, deftly capturing a sense of place and history, while bringing a deep humanity to his subject. He has written a delightful book.' - The Guardian

'Fascinating . . . Ross makes a likeably idiosyncratic guide and one finishes the book feeling strangely optimistic about the inevitable.' - The Observer

'A phenomenal, lyrical, beautiful book.' - Frank Turner

'The author's humanity has acted as a beacon of light in the darkness.' - The Sunday Times

(P) 2023 Headline Publishing Group Ltd©2023 Peter Ross Anthropology Architecture Sociology Middle Ages

Listeners also enjoyed...

 A Tomb With a View – The Stories & Glories of Graveyards cover art
Parfit cover art
Bibliomaniac cover art
Homer Box Set: Iliad & Odyssey cover art
The 21 cover art
The Dissolution of the Monasteries cover art
On Foot to Canterbury cover art
Erotic Vagrancy cover art
A Tour of Bones cover art
The Spire cover art
Confessions cover art
In Search of the Dark Ages cover art
In Search of Angels cover art
Tales of a Country Parish cover art
The Gathering Place cover art
Pictures from Italy cover art

Critic reviews

What makes Steeple Chasing so compelling - and it is a wonderful book; thoughtful and challenging - ... is Ross's essential kindness, his unfailing empathy with the people he meets on his pilgrimage.
A charming odyssey . . . in this lyrical love letter to churches Ross reminds us there is something worth saving and people who will make the effort.
His book is a delicious treat, and one that both believers and sceptics will enjoy.
Reading a book is another reciprocal act: if it's good, it stays with you. Ross's readers will have his words humming through them for a long time.
Lovely, lyrical, whimsical, elegiac ... Ross has a gift for making you feel you're there with him, just as awed as he is.
Ross has always had a quiet charm, and it is perhaps displayed best in this book. . . it is properly interested in humanity, especially in its complexity.
Steeple Chasing is, as you might expect from Ross, itself a beautiful object, full of delicacy and deliberation in the writing. . .a fascinating, beautifully written book full of both the strange and the terrible, but also full of grace and love.
Beautifully observed and evocatively written.
Never less than fascinating.
Steeple Chasing is a rich and often joyful account of the deeply personal roles churches still play in our communities (William Davies)
All stars
Most relevant
Splendidly written and read. What a joy this was to listen to - deep and meaningful and refreshing.

Excellent!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
liked the mix of religious and secular, the wide range of places visited. liked the inclusion of events during COVID

thoughtful without being self important, emotional without being maudlin, informative without being lecturing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great narration, i could listen to Peter Ross talk all day. Book was really interesting, getting A Tomb With A View now.

Brilliant!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Peter started the book at the beginning of the pandemic and hence it's not just a fascinating story of British churches but also a social history of the pandemic told via his travelling the country to visit British Churches. It's also a story of people who love these churches and are protecting them. Loved it.

The pandemic told by visiting churches

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I listened to this each morning while walking the dog and found it a delight. So much so that after listening on one such walk to tales of the Angel Roof at Upwell and the author’s story of stroking the angel’s left cheek I found myself that very afternoon deep in the Fens doing the very same thing. And well worth the trip it was. If you enjoy history, visiting churches and people you won’t be disappointed.

Engaging and beautifully written

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews