By the way, "there are a lot of churches in Britain," that could mean two different things. It could mean "40,000 church buildings, many of them with steeples (pointed towers)." Or, it could mean there are many different religious denominations: the Church of England and the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church and the Mormon Church...

Check and see. I'll bet the writer capitalized the word "church," as in "the Church." "A church" often means a building in which a congregation meets. It often has a spire on it called "a steeple." "The Church" means an entire religious institution. In British history, it would normally mean the Church of England (also called the Anglican Church). It has an estimated 26 million members, according to Wikipedia.

The church in this case will be the official church (or religion) of the country. This is the Church of England (or the Church of Scotland in Scotland). There are many other churches (or Christian denominations) but only these two are the official state ones which play a role in the politics of the country.