A Congregation of Ghosts

A Congregation of Ghosts is a 2009 film directed by Mark Collicott. It is based on the true story of the Reverend Frederick Densham. The film was shot on location in rural Cornwall in the United Kingdom. As of November 2012 the film has yet to be released.

Denshams father, William, had been a Methodist preacher. It is not known why Densham was ordained into the Church of England. As a highly educated man for his time BA, ACA he may have felt that the Church of England was more intellectual. However, his heart and mind lay with Methodism and thus more Low Church. He entered a church whose congregation was High Church. Over the years, differences slowly deepened between him and several members of his congregation. The congregation had always been small four to nine people and Densham found himself on many occasions preaching to an empty church. He developed the habit of occasionally placing tiny cards in the first six pews, labelled with the names of vicars going back to the Romans. When he did so he noted this in the church records and many local people remember the tiny cards. Unfortunately, Daphne du Maurier imaginatively created a cardboard cutout myth about this practice. This had led to many illfounded film and website remarks about Densham. Local people, many of whom still remember him though he died in 1953, resent the crude caricatures of the rector and of themselves.Although Densham was undoubtedly isolated by the Church of England congregation, he was popular among the local Methodists and often preached at Warleggan Chapel. He was a kindly and generous man, known for bringing rhododendron and camellias in spring to villagers and for sending milk to people who were ill. He longed for intellectual stimulation and wrote constantly, sending and receiving several letters a week. When he died, he was cremated as he had stipulated, though his wish that his ashes be scattered in a garden of remembrance that he had created in the grounds of the rectory were ignored. ........

Source: Wikipedia