SOCIETY / RELIGION and BELIEFS

List: Top Ten Most Popular Hymns - UK poll

Date: 2005

Source: Songs of Praise television programme viewers survey

Base: "Tens of thousands of viewers of BBC1's Songs of Praise were asked to vote in the poll" - but no figures released.

Notes: Top of the list was 'How Great Thou Art', a 20th century composition based on a Swedish poem sung to a Swedish folk tune. 'Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind' came second, a hymn based on a John Greenleaf Whittier (who was a Quaker) poem. 'The Day Thou Gavest', was voted the third most popular. 'In Christ Alone' was the most modern hymn in the list, written in 2002 by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend whilst 'Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer', sung to the tune Cwm Rhondda, was written 100 years ago by John Hughes and uses words produced two centuries earlier by William Williams. 'Love Divine, All Loves Excelling', is sung to the Welsh tune Blaenwern, while 'Be Thou My Vision' is rooted in an ancient Irish prayer.