Collegiate churches are one of the country's lesser-known glories. A collegiate church was the church of a medieval college, which was an important class of religious house, different from but comparable to a monastery. For most of their history, these colleges had nothing to do with education, but it is from them that the secular educational colleges of today are descended. Usually the most important, and often the only, part to survive from a college is the church. Collegiate churches were often large and magnificent, and almost 150 remain to the present day, forming a superb body of architecture. The book is illustrated with 300 photographs and contains two main sections. In the first, the author traces the development of the colleges from their beginnings in the Anglo-Saxon era to their dramatic decline in the sixteenth century, and deals with their nature, historical evolution, demise and legacy. The second section comprises an extensive gazetteer, divided into counties, designed as a convenient guide for the lover of old buildings to explore this part of our architectural wealth. The Collegiate Churches of England and Wales is a remarkable work which should be on the bookshelf of all those interested in the country's history and heritage.