A BEST-SELLING travel author has spoken of his love for a Sussex church.

Bill Bryson said St Andrew’s in Alfriston is one of his 14 favourite churches in the country.

He made his selections to mark the launch of a tourism website celebrating the historic buildings.

The 65-year-old said: “Alfriston is a famously lovely village in the heart of the South Downs National Park in Sussex and the very neat and pretty church of St Andrew’s overlooking the village green is a good part of what makes it so.

“Next door is the Old Clergy House which has the distinction of being the first property bought and saved by the National Trust way back in 1896.”

He picked Alfriston alongside Durham Cathedral, The Italian Chapel in Orkney, London’s St Martin the Fields and his local church in Hampshire among others for the shortlist.

The American writer said: “It is impossible to overstate the importance of churches to this country.

“Nothing else in the built environment has the emotional and spiritual resonance, the architectural distinction, the ancient, reassuring solidity of a parish church.

“To me they are the physical embodiment of all that is best and most enduring in Britain.”

Each church has its own web page and they are mentioned on a page about Bryson’s selections from Friday to mark the start of English Tourism Week.

The new tourism page, called Explore Churches, aims to make it easier to discover beautiful and fascinating churches in a project by the National Churches Trust, of which Bill Bryson is vice president.

The website brings churches to life by providing information about the history and architecture of the buildings as well as directions and opening hours.

Starting with an initial selection of 1,300 churches, users can search for churches based on location or by a particular feature such as stained glass or monuments.

It also offers themed lists like churches on TV, rare wooden churches, and those linked to the saints of love and romantic poets.

In 2015 Bryson had plenty to say about Sussex villages.

He described Eastbourne as “comfortably old fashioned”, Bognor “like a patient on life support” and the picturesque little seaside towns as “an endless clutter of suburbia on bypasses and dual carriageways”.

He particularly liked Seven Sisters which he chose to put on the front of his book The Road to Little Dribbling.

The title was Bryson’s first travel book in 15 years and comes 20 years after his first journal of his travels around Britain, Notes From a Small Island.