Discover Britain’s Pilgrim Places
Something troubling you? We can walk it out, urge the authors of the definitive guide to Britain’s spiritual spots.
PUBLISHED ON AUGUST 6th and crowning 2020’s Year of Pilgrimage, Britain’s Pilgrim Places details all 48 of Britain’s pilgrim routes – journeys of a few miles to a few months – and over 500 holy places. From humble wells to towering cathedrals, each makes a fine focal point for a walk on which to work things out. The authors are keen to stress that religious faith is not a prerequisite – only a hunger for a journey, or a setting in which you can put some aspect of your life into perspective. It’s a vast tome designed for coffee table or bookshelf, but it pairs with corresponding maps,
GPX files, photos and videos accessible via your smartphone at britishpilgrimage.org
We asked co-author Guy Hayward to choose seven of his favourite walks for a spiritual workout…
NORTHERN ENGLAND St Herbert’s Isle, Lake District
(St Bega’s Way)
Go row your boat gently across Derwent Water to this picturesque island, where the saintly hermit Herbert pondered the meaning of existence while living his simple life – catching fish, praying and administering wise counsel to those needing help who made the journey to visit him. Very little evidence of his 7th-century cell remains, but from Bede’s records we know Herbert was friends with St Cuthbert and wished to die on the same day as his hero – which he did.
MIDLANDS Much Wenlock, Shropshire (Abbesses Way)
A miracle place, powered in part by the spirit of Saxon abbess St Milburga, who during her life brought a dead boy back to life and ordered a flock of geese to stop naughtily eating her crops. Visit a couple of (now dry) holy wells in this quirky, boutiquerich town and maybe you will experience a miracle too.
The village of Little Walsingham was voted the nation’s favourite holy place in a poll by BBC Radio 4, which makes sense because it was one of the most visited shrines in medieval Europe. There’s a Catholic shrine, a Church of England shrine with a holy well, and the ruins of the original abbey destroyed by Henry VIII in the Reformation, set in a beautiful garden where the flowers are brighter than normal.
Tucked away in a churchyard off Port Meadow in the tiny hamlet of Binsey is the magical ‘treacle’ well, as seen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The well is on a day-pilgrimage route from Eynsham to Frideswide’s shrine in Christ Church Cathedral. Frideswide made this well famous because she found refuge here when fleeing from
the seductive King Ethelbald, who went blind as punishment, but whom she later healed with this holy water.
Glastonbury offers goddess mounds, holy thorns, crashing holy springs in a cave lit by candlelight, iron-rich well water spouting from a lion’s mouth in a world peace garden, towering views over the Somerset levels, starling murmurations, oak trees named after prehistoric giants, and a ruined abbey. A place of old and new magic that helps you feel closer to your heart.
WALES Llanddywyn Island, Anglesey
(Anglesey Pilgrimage)
Having trouble with love? This windswept coastal island (below) on Anglesey is blessed by the 5th-century Welsh Valentine, Dwynwen, who as a young woman gave her unsuitable lover a magic potion, hoping to heal their relationship, but instead turning him to stone.
In response, she pledged to remain unmarried, avoid love, and live as a hermit on the island, in order to protect true lovers forever more. After traversing the tidal causeway between mainland and island, seek her ruined chapel and cleanse yourself in her clifftop holy well pool, Ffynnon Dafaden.
SCOTLAND St Ninian’s Cave, Whithorn
(Whithorn Way)
Whithorn is home to Scotland’s first recorded saint and bishop, St Ninian, buried somewhere in this trio complex of ruined priory, chapel and cave. Along the coast from St Ninian’s Chapel, the cliffside cave is primarily given its holiness by nature herself, as well as the fact that Ninian retreated to it for peace. Stay a while to soak up the elemental forces, and you might experience a little of what Ninian sought here.
Britain’s Pilgrim Places is on sale now, priced £20.