Built in the twelfth century on the road that pilgrims took up to Jerusalem, the church of Abu Ghosh has survived with its structure essentially intact, which is rare: a solid Romanesque nave of three aisles, heavy piers, plain vaults and almost no later alteration. Beneath it, a crypt is built around a spring that still supplies water, the practical reason the site was occupied in the first place. On the walls, twelfth-century frescoes survive in fragments, their figures ghostly against the stone, and no attempt has been made to complete them. The church stands in a walled garden tended by a French Benedictine community, whose chant fills a building known for its acoustics. Filmed in 4K, the programme brings together medieval architecture, wall painting, monastic life and the history of the pilgrim road.
