Dozens of churches across Cornwall do not offer any Sunday worship, according to an analysis by The Telegraph. 

The newspaper examined 287 churches in the county and found that 78 did not have any Sunday service advertised on the last weekend of September. 

That amounts to over a quarter (27%) of churches in the county. 

Of the churches that did have a Sunday service running, less than half (114) were offering Communion. 

Some 23 churches in Cornwall did not appear to offer any service at all in the whole of September. 

The analysis was based on information about service schedules on the Church of England's church finder website, A Church Near You. 

Rev Marcus Walker, chairman of Save the Parish, told the newspaper that the figures did not come as any surprise. 

He called on the Church of England to invest in more priests and saving parish ministry. 

"It can come as no shock to anybody that if you reduce the number of priests, you reduce the number of services; if you reduce the number of services you reduce the number of people going to church," he said.

"The Church of England has hundreds of millions of pounds to throw at pet causes. Now is the time to put that money back where it was supposed to be spent: parish ministry."