My heart leapt when AI told me that Ambridge had a flourishing Catholic community …

04 June 2026, The Tablet

Why are there no Catholics in The Archers? You’d have thought that a village in hailing distance of Birmingham might have allowed a few in, or even have inherited some Borsetshire recusants.

There is loyalty among Ambridge carriage folk and yokels to St Stephen’s Anglican church (whose vicar is married to a Hindu). Shula, the daughter of Phil and Jill Archer, was ordained an Anglican priest and has gone off as a missionary to Sunderland. Some nice Muslims have moved in. But not a hint of a Catholic, practising or lapsed.

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