Keyholder
Get the most from touring historic English and Welsh churches
Getting the most from a church visit
Keyholder is an information app for anyone who visits Church of England and Church in Wales parish churches. It covers all 15,000 churches across England and Wales, providing the practical and historical information that helps visitors get the most out of these remarkable buildings.
The app displays a map showing which churches are open to the public during the day and which are locked, have keyholders, or are open at restricted times — saving the frustration of an unnecessary journey. It also provides links to a comprehensive set of external resources for each church, including Historic England listing data, the Churches Conservation Trust, and the Friends of Friendless Churches.
The information is updated daily, the majority of it contributed by app users. Anyone can add their own comments, access notes, and photographs for any church, making Keyholder more useful for everyone who uses it. App users have now visited over 80% of England and Wales' 15,600 churches and photographed around 40% of them.
What Keyholder provides
map view
360 × 640 px
Access map
The map shows all Church of England and Church in Wales parish churches across England and Wales, colour-coded by access status — open during the day, locked, keyholder available, or restricted hours. Before making a journey to a remote church, you can check whether it is likely to be accessible.
Access information is contributed and updated by app users, and reflects current conditions far more reliably than static published guides.
church links
360 × 640 px
External resources
Each church record links to a comprehensive set of external resources: Historic England listing data, the Churches Conservation Trust, the Friends of Friendless Churches, A Church Near You, the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture, the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, and others. Everything relevant to a particular church is gathered in one place.
visitor notes
360 × 640 px
Visitor notes and photographs
Anyone using the app can contribute their own comments, access notes, and photographs for any church. This community-sourced information — updated daily — is what makes Keyholder genuinely useful in the field. Users have now visited over 80% of all 15,600 churches in England and Wales and photographed around 40% of them.