1 Introduction

12 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Background For commentators such as Urry (1990) and Woodward (2004), contemporary tourism has its roots in religious pilgrimage. Whilst this is contestable, for some domestic and overseas visitors, a holiday may, for a minority, incorporate twenty or thirty minutes in a parish church at some point. The roles have been reversed from travel for religious purposes incorporating secular pleasure, compare The Canterbury Tales and, perhaps, the Camino de Santiago (Murray & Graham 1997), to tourism including a visit or two to a religious establishment as just one of the destination attractions (Busby 2002; Olsen & Timothy 2006; Woodward 2004). “A resurgence of interest in visiting sacred sites” is how Shackley (2002) explains the recent growth in visitor numbers to cathedrals and churches despite a decline in the importance of religion in society as a whole (Wilson 1985). Indeed, this form is argued to be one of the major growth sectors in international tourism (Russell 1999; Woodward 2004). Empirical data to confirm these views is, however, quite limited; in fact, both Olsen & Timothy (2006) and Vukonić (1998) emphasise that it is one of the most under-researched aspects of tourism. Nonetheless, at a time of declining church congregations, it is interesting to note the development of documentaries over the last five years, by the BBC, featuring rural churches; whilst A Country Parish and A Seaside Parish paid only passing attention to the physical structures, A Passion for Churches, launched on 28 December 2005, emphasised the quality of building heritage – mention is also made of visitors‟ book comments in episode one, featuring St Hywyns, Aberdaron. The public interest in church-visiting can be contextualised within the four aspects that Gibbons (1999) believes visitors relate to: firstly, to the church as a building, secondly, 13 as an example of values, thirdly, through the theology, and, with most emphasis, fourthly, through the numinous1 attraction – importantly, all four aspects interlock. The visitor need not be particularly religious to experience the spiritual quality of the English parish church; however, it is the context which prevents the individual site from becoming a mere museum for many, probably most, visitors. It is because they have meaning and function that these religious buildings have an effect on the individual visitor (Gibbons 1999). Evidence, chiefly anecdotal, suggests that churches fascinate visitors for a variety of reasons (Gibbons 1999; Gold 2000; Hanna 1984). Their topographical settings, their architecture, their contents and implied social history demand personal attention. At a national level, a number of books (Betjeman 1958, 1993; Bottomley 1978; Briers 1989; Clifton-Taylor 1974; Durant 1995; Jenkins 1999; Sinden 1988; Vayne 1984; Young 1991) address the architecture and contents of English churches. For these various reasons, Gold (2000) suggests that rural parish churches occupy an iconic position in the wider countryside – embodying the English identity even (Jenkins 1999). 1 Numinous (L. numen: divine power) is defined as: 1. Of or pertaining to a numen; supernatural 2. Indicating or suggesting the presence of a god; divine; holy 3. Inspiring awe and reverence; spiritual Source: http://dictionary.reference.com (2006) 14 1.2 Aim and objectives of the study Undoubtedly, churches are an important element in the range of visitor attractions found at destinations in the United Kingdom, indeed, further afield as well. This study draws on a range of disciplines or academic fields, namely, the rapidly growing corpus of tourism research, history, geography, sociology, and Cornish studies (Deacon 2004a; Kent 2005), in order to address the over-arching aim: – To investigate the relationship between visitors and the Cornish church heritage. To fulfil this aim, sociological and geographical constructs, such as culture and heritage, are reviewed; these are then considered in the context of their application to the county of Cornwall. Drawing on the historical discipline, the development of the church is examined for evidence of both tangible and intangible features and aspects which can, themselves, be potential visitor attractions. As the aim suggests, the concept of the Cornish church as a visitor attraction will be situated within the published literature. Remarkably little research has been published concerning the relationship between tourism and religious sites in Britain. In post-graduate degree terms, there have been a few MA, MSc and MPhil theses (Brice 2004; Gold 2000; Greenwood 1999; Weaver 1995) which address some aspect of the visitor experience. Given this position, it is not surprising that there is very little research on what is argued to be a key component of the Cornish cultural heritage. Fyall et al (2002) edited a special issue of the International Journal of Tourism Research addressing the lack of a mature research base concerning visitor attractions overall. In the context of this research, Poria et al (2003a:341) discuss the “very limited body of research” which actually addresses the relationship between religion and tourism. This research attempts to rectify the position, if only for three specific 15 locations: the two, allegedly, most-visited churches in the county – Gunwalloe and St Just-in-Roseland, and a comparison site, Lanteglos-by-Fowey. The three parishes are shown in Figure 5.1 by the numbers 41, 77 and 104, respectively and the specific sites in Figure 1.1. The specific research objectives are as follows: Objective 1 – to synthesise an understanding of the terms cultural tourism, religious tourism, and heritage tourism as they relate to visitors and the Cornish church heritage. A review of the cultural and heritage tourism world is provided in order to illustrate how the terms have come to represent such diversity with respect to interpretation. Given that culture encompasses so many facets of everyday life, both contemporary and historic, it seems appropriate to view churches as receiving cultural tourists and visitors – because the term is so inclusive – whereas the buildings, themselves, form part of the Cornish heritage. Whilst the study of religion and culture demonstrates something of a pedigree, the concept of heritage has only been seriously examined during the last twenty years, initially by Lowenthal (1985), Wright (1985) and Hewison (1987). Indeed, academic investigation has led to the introduction of peer-reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Heritage Studies and, very recently, the Journal of Heritage Tourism; it could be argued that this, alone, indicates that heritage has become a major area of academic study. In Britain, it was industrial decline, in mining and manufacturing terms, which led to the emphasis on nostalgia: the suggestion being that national identity could rest on a heritage of rural idyll as much as colonial achievement and the paradigm shift of the industrial revolution. Also pertinent to this discussion is the sub-discipline of historical geography for it is important to consider how the spaces and places of a bygone age are remembered today (Harvey 2002; Lowenthal 1985; 16 Uzzell 1989); it is considered that how these spaces and places are remembered is particularly apposite with visitors to churches. Heritage, it will be argued, is a less ambiguous concept than culture, the former can exist in isolation and becomes part of cultural tourism once it is „valued‟; this objective reviews a wide range of literature in order to demonstrate this. Objective 2 – to investigate the concept of church heritage tourism with particular reference to Cornwall and its place within the multiple representations of the county. Cornish culture and heritage are key determinants in the decision to visit the county, for many tourists; it is partly through a process of commodification that both domestic and international visitors perceive a degree of „Otherness‟. One manifestation of this produces an image of „Celtic Cornwall‟, a discourse for many tourists. There is certainly no doubt that Cornwall is a contested territory, in the sense that the county has many different meanings for individuals – and specific sites, similarly, have multiple meanings. It is the cultural backcloth of the county which explains much of what is present in Cornish churches and, therefore, the discussion of the historic development of the church is intended to both situate the extant heritage and explain how many of the features apparent to visitors have come about. This is essential since both tangible and intangible cultural and historic representations influence visitors; perception, based on these representations, is considered in the two data collection exercises as is a consideration of MacCannell‟s (1976) concept of „the marker‟. Objective 3 – to explain the Cornish church visitor profile in terms of multiple motivations. 17 Given that tourists‟ perception of any given “heritage site is a complex construct” (Gvili & Poria 2005:65), the primary research is intended to establish visitor data in terms of nationality, temporal trends, socio-demographic characteristics, behavioural patterns, personal interests and individual interpretations of the site visited – some of these interpretations will draw on historic features and others on intangible aspects, discussed in chapter 5. As McLean (2006) observes, addressing the relationship, it is surprising how little research there is concerning identity construction in heritage,

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