5. The Ghosts of the West Gallery

Jeremy Summerly visits Dorchester.

It was here that Thomas Hardy captured the caroling tradition that had matured through the 17th and 18th century, but which faced extinction in the 19th.

The West Gallery tradition of musicians and singers in parish churches was an integral part of community life in Hardy's Wessex as elsewhere.

Jeremy explains the origins of that tradition and the fuguing carols so beloved at the time and why it was that their days were numbered.

Along with folk musician Tim Laycock he gets to see the carol manuscripts from which Hardy's great grandfather played and sang on Christmas night in 1800.

The choral conductor and scholar's series tracing the history of the Christmas Carol in Britain.

It's a journey full of song describing the history of a people who needed expression for seasonal joy in the coldest, hardest time of the year.

Producer: Tom Alban

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.