Lyonsdown

Holy Trinity, LNK, isn't mentioned by Mee or Pevsner but is a dreary pseudo Norman Victorian build entirely lacking merit - frankly it's the zit you wake up to on the morning of your wedding.

Since there's no Pevsner I am going to replace him with a rant about extreme, nay cultish, far right evangelical Christians.

Having taken, almost impossible, exteriors I tried the porch door and found it open but the church door was locked, which I was expecting. As I started to leave, however, the internal door was opened a fraction by a young man, and I mean a fraction - all I could see was his head leaning round the door - and the following conversation occurred:

Youth - "What do you want?"

Me - "Would it be possible to have a look around the church and take some photographs?"

Youth pauses for about a second (probably not even that long)and fires back in a tone that is antagonistic, hostile and defensive all at the same time - "No".

Which is fine and I leave. Except it's not. I came across this sort of Nazi Christianity in Plaistow last year and, whilst I'm fully open to the notion that he was a satanist who had broken in to the church and was sacrificing a virgin on the altar beneath an inverted crucifix, I think he was a fully fledged member of the evangelical church (I Googled Lyonsdown when I got home and they're plainly nutters); probably.

Why are the evangelic evangelicals so hostile and defensive whilst spouting their mission? I think that a simple open church policy would serve them far better rather than their simplistic literal interpretation of biblical learning.