Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in the East of England/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Dabomb87 00:00, 8 April 2011.

List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in the East of England

 * Nominator(s): Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:21, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured list because... This is the fourth in a series of lists of English churches maintained by the Churches Conservation Trust to be submitted at FLC, the previous three having been successful. This list is based closely on the last to be successful, List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in the English Midlands. Its format is identical, the first two paragraphs of the lead are identical (the charity's financial details have been updated since the former list was accepted), and the other paragraphs mirror those in the last successful list. The test has been copyedited. Every church in the list is linked to an article, or to part of an article.Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:21, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: no disambiguations, no linkrot. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:04, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * What makes {http://www.druidic.org/camchurch/index.htm] a WP:RS? Likewise {http://apling.freeservers.com/Villages/Islington.htm}, {http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LIN/Buslingthorpe/#ChurchHistory}, and {http://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=4079} Jezhotwells (talk) 21:14, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * An interesting query. To take the sources in the order presented.
 * The text of {http://www.druidic.org/camchurch/index.htm} (Cambridgeshire Churches) is written by Ben Colburn, Cambridge PhD student . While his pages are not cited, he does give a bibliography  which suggests his material is authoritative.  Where his material is repeated in other (reliable) sources, it is accurate and I have no reason to suspect that the other material is unreliable.
 * I do not know anything about {http://apling.freeservers.com/Villages/Islington.htm} but have used it in one article only — to give access to an excerpt from Kelly's directory of 1883. I have no reason to doubt that this is other than a correct transcription of a reliable source.
 * I thought GENUKI is OK. It is a site mainly of transcribed material from official sources, or for links to such sources.  I have used it only in this list (I think) to give the dates that churches were declared redundant where I could not find this info elsewhere.
 * Britain Express is interesting. There are no references or citations.  But it seems to have pages relating to all the churches preserved by the Trust, and in the course of writing the lists and associated articles I must have looked at over 200 of them.  Once again, where the material is repeated in other (reliable) sources, it is accurate and I have no reason to suspect that the other material is unreliable.
 * Having said all that, if there is a consensus among reviewers that these sources (all or some) are unreliable, I am willing to delete their contents from the list. One of the reasons I included them was to provide pieces of information that might interest the reader sufficiently to link to the relevant article. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 13:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * ' 'All Saints stands in marchland and has a leaning west tower.'' "marshland" surely? Jezhotwells (talk) 21:18, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * A typo. Fixed.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 13:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Originating the 12th century, the church was expanded during a time of prosperity in the town in the early 15th century. missing "in", I think. Better might be "Built in". Jezhotwells (talk) 21:20, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Amended as suggested.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 13:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * ' 'Without the help of an architect, this church was designed by its rector, Rev Whitwell Elwin, who borrowed details from other churches in the country.'' "country" or "county"? Could be better phrased. Jezhotwells (talk) 21:24, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Rephrased. It is "country"; Glastonbury, Lichfield, Westminster Palace, and others.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 13:54, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Good, good. i would like to see what others think of the sourcing. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:19, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking, the original source should be cited, whether on or off-line, rather than a transcript. If there is no alternative, then the citation should make it clear that it is a transcript of an original source. Jezhotwells (talk) 10:40, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Ref amended. Does it work like that?--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 11:50, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Comment Support This appears to be another excellent addition to the series of FLs (I must declare a bias as I helped with one of them). The lead seems to cover the wide spectrum of items in the list, which itself seems well written and sorts appropriately.
 * In some cases the initials of the architect rather than the full name (eg S.S. Teulon for Samuel Sanders Teulon at All Saints, Wordwell and G.E. Street) and I wondered if this was a deliberate policy for some reason? In other cases eg Giles Gilbert Scott & George Frederick Bodley the name is written in full.
 * I think this inconsistency arises from the architects themselves (or those who write about them). I have checked this in a volume of Pevsner, and in a book on Victorian architecture.  In some cases there are even partnerships where one partner uses full names, and the other just initials.  Teulon is usually (if not always) referred to as "S. S.".  Scott cannot of course be "G. G." because his son shares the same initials (and the other son is usually referred to as J. Oldrid Scott (not John ...).  Having said that Bodley is usually "G. F.", so I have amended that.  I think all the architects' names are now in their usual convention.


 * In the description of St Mary, East Ruston I wondered why the Four Evangelists had both words in upper case when doctors of the early church is all in lower case?
 * Amended.


 * Several of the references (eg 249, 259 ) use Britain Express - I believe the reliability of this site has been challenged elsewhere due to concerns about accuracy (although I've never found a problem with it myself), but I don't know what the outcome was.
 * See above
 * Might be worth asking at Reliable sources/Noticeboard.&mdash; Rod talk 08:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Query raised as suggested. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 10:19, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Some references eg 280 which are PDF documents, have the "format=PDF" parameter, others eg 176, 271 do not include this & consistency is required.
 * Fixed.

I hope some of these minor comments are useful. Generally I think the list has been very well done.&mdash; Rod talk 21:34, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both reviewers. I think all the points have been addressed. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 14:30, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for addressing these. I am unsure about the Britain Express source so am happy to support.&mdash; Rod talk 08:36, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * This looks excellent, and I haven't been able to see anything that leads me to believe I shouldn't support. One question I have about the first sentence - it states "The Churches Conservation Trust, which was initially known as the Redundant Churches Fund, is a charity whose purpose is to protect historic churches at risk, those that have been made redundant by the Church of England". It makes sense as it is, but I was wondering whether it might be split into two sentences or slightly rephrased, as it perhaps seems a little awkward. Slightly unhelpfully, I can't work out how else to phrase it without removing important words (which is probably why it's written that way), so it's not a big issue. The other thing I wondered about is why only Pevsner's The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire is listed in the bibliography when the article mainly covers Norfolk/Suffolk/Cambs, etc. Neither of these things are worth worrying about. I wonder if there's anybody from Bedfordshire willing to take a picture of St George's, Edworth? Rob (talk) 17:39, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the support. Not sure what to do about the first sentence — I'm no copyeditor!  There's only one Pevsner because that's all I have — picked up secondhand on holiday some time ago.  Yes, it's frustrating to have just one missing photo.  But this gives opportunities for other editors to enrich the list (and the associated articles). --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 18:17, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Support Another labour of love! I've had a look through and everything seems to be in order and well-written.  A minor nitpick: the Date column has a number of phantom vertical lines on the left (for example, in the entries for the final two churches, and there are others further up).  This seems in some way to have been caused by the image in the column to the left.  I'm no expert on wikitables, I'm afraid (and the same thing has happened to me when contributing a few images to the currently in-progress List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in South East England), but it would be nice if this minor problem could be fixed. --GuillaumeTell 19:10, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the support. Could this be a browser problem?  I use Firefox, and there are no such lines.  IE problem? --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 19:32, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, it could - I have IE8. I'll ask around. --GuillaumeTell 22:06, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Just noting that I've talked the above over with another IE8 user. He can't see the extra vertical lines that I can see (incidentally, they all seem to appear where the image to the left is in portrait rather than landscape format), so it looks as if the problem is at my end.  Clearing the cache and suchlike make no difference.  Oh, well. --GuillaumeTell 17:06, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * NOTE CCT seems to be in the process of changing its website now. On one of my computers (Windows 7) I am still getting the old version, on the other (XP) a new version with totally different URLs for the churches and everything (they had warned me they were going to have a "new website").  And the church descriptions are not the same.  So I will have to beg time to update all the CCT links (and maybe amend the Notes section).  Oh joy! Going out for a walk now. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 09:31, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * All URLs updated. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 11:30, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. Ah well, you ask a question... It seems that websites written and published by an individual are considered to be unreliable sources, unless they are written by an acknowledged academic who has published material in that field.  This means that Britain Express and Cambridge Churches are unacceptable as sources — and so of course are the articles written by Simon Knott.  So over the weekend I will remove the references and the material they contain that is not available elsewhere.


 * A thought: we know that there are errors in Pevsner and in ODNB, but they are considered to be reliable sources. We have no evidence that there are errors in the sources I have to delete, but they are unreliable.  That's life! --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 11:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Unreliable refs deleted plus two that have become deadlinks since the change of the CCT website.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 14:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Just a quick note to say that WP:RSN is somewhere to seek third-party opinions rather than a definitive answer, although WP:RS and WP:SPS do seem pretty clear on this. I'm just aware that I'm the only person who replied over there, that's all. WP:V does say that the threshold is verifiability, not truth - but I think you should always try and identify errors if you can, the key of course being that the reader has to be able to verify that something is an error. It occurs to me that if you are able to get the material you've had to reject included in a reliable source, then you'll be able to re-instate it in the article. Maybe there's some mileage in submitting it to one or more of the reliable online sources? It seems a bit of a waste of your hard work, otherwise. Maccy69 (talk) 20:23, 26 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks Maccy69 for that. I appreciate your replying on this page.  In making the amendments, not much has been lost in the context of a list.  I do understand what you say, and am (sort of) happy to live with it. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 20:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

 Comments Support
 * "There is one church in Georgian style, Old All Saints Church, Great Steeping, one in Palladian style, St Andrew's Church, Gunton, while the newest six churches are Gothic Revival in style.": the commas make this sentence stutter a bit, although it's still easy to understand. Maybe the examples could be put in brackets, or the link changed slightly so that "Old All Saints Church, Great Steeping" becomes "Old All Saints Church in Great Steeping" (although then you might think there are to many "ins" in the sentence).
 * I think brackets are the better solution, and these have been added. I had been rather "put off" brackets in the lead by an earlier review, but then they were in the first sentence, and I think they work OK here.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Should "Norman conquest" be capitalised?
 * I should have thought so, but I took the small "c" from Norman conquest of England; maybe it's "wrong" there.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * In the descriptions of individual churches, what do you think about mentioning roughly when when each medieval village because deserted?
 * The sources I have tend to be very vague about this; in some cases not only the date but the cause(s) — (black death, loss of local manor house, shift of population for economic reasons); too complicated to include in a list (and sometimes too speculative even for a short article).--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Not every church has the year it was declared redundant in; when it's not mentioned is this because it's unavailable?
 * A similar problem — sources available to me. I should have thought they would be readily available from the CCT website, but I cannot find them there.  In some cases, I did find a date, but these had to be deleted because the source was deemed to be unreliable (see above).--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The lead seems to hit the nail on the head: there's an explanation of the Trust, what it does and how the churches are looked after, and the main trends of the table. The table itself is laid out sensibly, and the descriptions are informative without being overwhelming despite the number of entries. Another very good list. Nev1 (talk) 21:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments. Sorry I could not give better answers.--Peter I. Vardy (talk) 08:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Further to the above, my attention has been brought to this site from which, I understand, you can deduce the dates of redundancy and vesting. But I wonder if it is worthwhile adding these details to the list. It would add clutter, and I'm not sure that the information provided will be of much use in the list.  The information should IMO be contained in the individual articles, but that will take some time to complete.  What do reviewers think? --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 14:11, 30 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought a lack of information (or simply unclear information) might be the problem, particularly regarding DMVs. If you think that including the year each church was declared redundant will clutter the table and it's the kind of information that is better suited to the individual articles, that's fine by me. I've switched to support. Nev1 (talk) 23:26, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Support I look forward to seeing the completed list for my home area! Hassocks 5489 (tickets please!)  11:12, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Support I had a good read through of this about a week ago and meant to comment, but time got away from me. I've gone through it again today and this is another fine list in the series. I believe all issues have been ironed out (although I must admit I didn't catch most of what's been mentioned above) and I can't find anything to oppose over. The prose is detailed and informative, while remaining accessible to the average reader. The table works well and references all look in order now (commiserations about the annoyance of the website changing recently.) I'm afraid the following are the only suggestions I could come up with:
 * Have you considered including information about the "B" grade in the explanatory table?
 * Yes. This cropped up in the last FLC.  Please see the discussion here.  It's frustrating, but some Grades have already been reassessed (this is why we use Heritage Gateway rather than Images of England — the later is not, and will not be, updated.
 * Ah, that's interesting. Your decision to keep them separate makes sense.-- Beloved Freak  11:05, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * This is very nit-picky, but I find the black border on the image of All Saints Church, Haugham mildly distracting, so much so that I removed it. Would you object to replacing it with File:Haugham Church - geograph.org.uk - 94683 noborder.jpg? :)
 * I did not feel this was a problem, but I have changed the image to the one you so kindly amended.

Beloved Freak  17:24, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to Belovedfreak. Points answered. --Peter I. Vardy (talk) 09:50, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.