“Avoid fornication” is chiselled precisely in cultured Times typeface on a flat, rustic slab set awkwardly into the highly textured and coloured flint nap vernacular wall of this local forest church in southern England.

The search for effective contraception can be traced back to biblical times, but it is only since the advent of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s that women around the world have begun to have effective choice and control over their fertility.