Place of high standing in the church (7)
I believe the answer is:
steeple
'church' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both man-made objects as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'place of high standing in' is the wordplay.
'of high' says to take the initial letters (I've seen 'highest of' mean this (top letter - down clues only)).
'standing' becomes 'steele' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
The initial letter of 'place' is 'p'.
'p' going inside 'steele' is 'STEEPLE'.
'the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for steeple that I've seen before include "point" , "that the church may be under" , "Pointed structure" , "Tall building" , "part of church" .)