This article, by a person who goes around photographing abandoned churches in America, has several spectacular photos of faded grandeur. And this episode of the Abandoned America podcast does a thorough analysis of the main reasons – which are much the same the world over.

It’s not all down to dwindling numbers of citizens identifying as religious. Changes in neighbourhood demographics, dwindling attendees, ageing structures and poverty all play their part.

Catholic churches loom large among abandoned ones, and tend to be the largest and most opulent. A wave of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Poland, Germany or Slovakia may have clubbed together or even raised funds nationwide to build their own church (often in the poorer parts of town) for services in their mother tongue. Catholics are commanded to attend Holy Mass each Sunday, and many (like Jews) prefer to walk to Mass rather than drive. Both create the need for a local church, but not the need for a substantial car-park.

All these needs and circumstances can evaporate in a single generation, as the children of churchgoers move out of the area. The remaining congregation may dwindle, become older, poorer and more mixed, or fall out with the priest, all of which argues against the church serving the needs it once did. The poverty of the churchgoers may prevent them from undertaking necessary repairs in a timely fashion. The building materials: large beams of hardwood, highly decorated plaster, may once have been cheap to buy and use by the ordinary artisans comprising the congregation, but now be expensive to repair or replace.

Church buildings can be repurposed, and many have been. But once the decision to close a church has been taken, the building’s owners may be chary about who gets their hands on it. Microbrewery? – er, okay. Nightclub? – definitely not! Pending an acceptable buyer, the church will lie derelict: passing beyond repair in as little as two years. Then it will linger as an eyesore until bulldozed to make way for a major new development. In a run-down area, that may be a long time.