Birdsong in rain from inside the derelict chapel at Abney Park nature reserve

Full Episode description

There’s a special feeling that comes with the sound of falling rain. With a sky still free of jet planes, this is how the day unfolds within the secret space of the derelict chapel of Abney Park. It is first thing in the morning, when the birds begin to sing and the trees change from dark shadow into green.

Set within dense woodland in the north east of London, barred and padlocked against vandals, this architecturally significant chapel hollowed out by fire thirty years ago, now stands on the cusp of restoration. It’s a dissenting gothic structure that aligns and appreciates the natural landscape, and whose 120 foot spire, still visible above the veteran pines, signifies to all around that below lies an oasis of calm within the city. Since its dereliction, the chapel has witnessed ten thousand dawns. This is just one of them. One glorious section of time captured by a pair of microphones left alone to record inside the chapel, underneath nesting birds.