Fancy holidaying at home this year, but with a difference?
How about camping inside one of Norfolk's most unusual churches, with breakfast thrown in?
'Champing' – church camping –has arrived in the county. From May holidaymakers will be able to book a night inside the fantastical, richly-decorated Church of St Michael the Archangel, in Booton, near Reepham.
For £55 per adult, £20 for children, campers can enjoy the run of the extraordinary 19th-century Gothic building, designed by eccentric clergyman the Rev Whitwell Elwin.
Families and pets will have the isolated church to themselves to play hide-and-seek, and sleep under the hammerbeam roof decorated with the carved angels Elwin modelled on his 'Blessed Girls' – young female friends. An eco-friendly compost toilet will be installed outside, water provided and organisers are talking to local pubs, cafés, farms, and restaurants about providing breakfast for campers.
The Grade II*-listed building, unused as a church since 1987, is among 347 in England under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust which is trying to find imaginative ways to bring people back inside them. The trust launched its first four champing sites last year and is expanding choices to 10 this year, including Booton Church.
Tracey Crouch, minister for heritage and tourism, said: 'This scheme is truly an encouraging way to ensure the rich history in churches is not lost.'
For more information visit www.champing.co.uk
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