Telegraph – Walks with Meaning
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where the wild things are Tomé Morrissy- Swan at Knepp Heritage, wildlife, literature… a modern pilgrimage doesn’t have to be about religion. Gail Simmons inspires Telegraph writers to lace up their boots hy walk? Un- island is easier to reach these days, like our fore- 20 WALKS with daily boat trips in summer, and bears, we don’t is the final stop on the 130-mile North need to travel Wales Pilgrims Way. Park in Porth on foot, yet WITH Meudwy (LL53 8DA) for the boat, and many of us still spend three or four hours exploring choose to. One MEANING the wildlife-rich island on foot. W reason may be pilgrims-way-north-wales.org fitness – those recommended 10,000 daily steps – but I don’t believe this PILGRIMAGES Bede’s Way tells the whole story. The Venerable Bede may have been a In an age that seems to be moving The Old Way revered monk and scholar in ever faster, slowing down is a pro- Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales Northumbria, where Christianity foundly liberating experience. In a famously described a pilgrimage flourished in Anglo-Saxon England, world that is ever more complex, from London to the tomb of Thomas but this 12-mile walk from St Paul’s repeatedly putting one foot in front of Becket, murdered in 1170. But there’s Monastery (NE32 3DY) in Jarrow on the other is an act of simplicity and – a lesser-known route to Canterbury Tyneside to St Peter’s church dare I say it? – mindfulness. that begins at Southampton, where Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, is A bracing walk in the countryside pilgrims from throughout Europe more about the expansion and can often do the trick. But some of us disembarked to travel to the saint’s decline of coal mining and are seeking walks with an extra di- shrine. The Old Way spans some shipbuilding than it is about early mension, journeys that reveal some- 230 miles of southern English Christianity. Today, Jarrow is thing more meaningful. countryside, passing through such associated with the “crusade” of 1936, Historically, people found meaning gems as Chichester, Arundel, Lewes, a mass protest against unemployment in pilgrimages to the shrines of saints. Battle, Winchelsea and Rye before and poverty when some 200 people Why make such a journey in today’s reaching Kent’s cathedral city. Start marched to London to petition the increasingly secular society? walking from Southampton’s government. ldwa.org.uk Will Parsons is co-founder of the medieval Bargate (SO14 2DJ). British Pilgrimage Trust, which aims britishpilgrimage.org Walsingham Way to revitalise pilgrimage in Britain. He’s Canterbury may be more renowned, noticed a “groundswell of interest”, Bardsey (ynys enlli) but today Walsingham is England’s seeing “new groups embrace the tradi- In the Middle Ages three pilgrimages most important centre of pilgrimage. tion, and new routes opening”. to Bardsey equalled one to Rome, so A Saxon noblewoman saw the Virgin For Parsons, 21st century pilgrim- dangerous was the crossing from the Mary here in 1061, and while the sites age is about connecting with those mainland. For the devout, the reward of two medieval monastic houses still who have trodden the same paths for was communing with the 20,000 exist, it was the 20th century that saw centuries. As he puts it, “knowing that saints said to be buried here. The the revival of pilgrimage here. The ALAMY THE TELEGRAPH; FOR GRAHAM WILLIAMS, CHARLOTTE JAY CROWLEY, ANDREW others have gone the same way, by the same track, under the same trees”. So it’s the journey, rather than the destination, that matters to today’s pil- grims. And perhaps it was always thus. Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was more about a shared adventure than visiting the shrine of Thomas Becket. It doesn’t have to be religious, or even spiritual. Walking in the foot- steps of others, whether on the trading routes of long-forgotten ancestors or the rambles of eminent literary fig- ures, adds insight to a journey. This was my experience as I fol- lowed the route of the young Robert Louis Stevenson across the Chiltern Hills for my book The Country of Larks, the walk enriched by sensing his pres- ence striding alongside me. pilgrims’ Abbey (TD6 9LA), crossing the Take the train to Cark and Cartmel Here is my choice of 20 meaningful progress dramatic Eildon Hills towards and walk back to the village. Crossing walks you can do in Britain. Some are Pip Sloan and Dom Newtown St Boswells, returning by the tidal sands of Morecambe Bay is spiritual journeys, some are heritage leave Padstow the Borders Abbey Way to Melrose dangerous without a guide, so routes and others have a literary or behind, below; (15 miles). stcuthbertsway.info consider travelling by train between environmental focus. There are long Bardsey Island, left; Ulverston and Cark. walks, short walks and shorter version the Wiltshire sT PaTrick’s Way britishpilgrimage.org of long ones. Downs, below right St Patrick is Ireland’s patron saint, also closely connected with places in HERITAGE WALKS The Country of Larks: A Chiltern the north of the island. This 82-mile Journey by Gail Simmons is walk takes you from pre-Christian greaT sTOnes Way published by Bradt (books. Navan Fort close to Armagh (where Wiltshire is where you most sense telegraph.co.uk). two cathedrals, on two hills, England’s ancient and enigmatic past. representing two Christian This 36-mile trail takes you through 73-mile walk leads from the cathedral denominations, are both dedicated to 5,000 years of history as it crosses the at Ely across the Fens to Walsingham, the same saint) to Downpatrick, his Wiltshire Downs from Old Sarum to ending at the medieval Slipper final resting place. Park at Navan Barbury – a landscape strewn with Chapel. An alternative six-mile Centre (BT60 4LD) for an easy prehistoric monuments. circular route takes in the major five-mile round trip walk into the Alternatively, a five-mile loop around religious sites of the village small city of Armagh, the ancient Stonehenge takes in Bronze Age (NR22 6DH). explorenorfolkuk.co.uk ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, with barrows, the largest complete henge its two cathedrals and many Georgian sT cuThBerT’s Way/ buildings. walkni.com BOrders aBBey Way Cuthbert is the great saint of early cumBrian cisTercian Way Christianity in the North. The full Following in the footsteps of monks 62-mile walk runs from Melrose in and preachers, this 25-mile coastal the Scottish Borders to Holy Island trail connects Furness Abbey with (Lindisfarne) off the Northumberland Cartmel Priory and passes coast, places associated with St Swarthmoor Hall, central to the Cuthbert’s life. Viking raids on origins of the Quakers. For a taster, Lindisfarne Priory led to his followers park in Cartmel (LA11 6QB), with its moving his tomb to its eventual unmissable priory church, and follow resting place in Durham Cathedral. paths over hills and through For a shorter version, leave Melrose woodland to Grange-Over-Sands. PIP SLOAN TAKES THE SAINT’S WAY IN CORNWALL erhaps lesser known than the circuitous South P West Coast Path, the 27-mile Saints Way stretches straight across the belly of Cornwall, from busy, foodie Padstow to the bustling harbour of Fowey. It is believed the route was first taken by the Christian pilgrims travelling from Ireland down through Wales and into Brittany or Galicia – reading this makes me feel ever-so-slightly ashamed of my trepidation at the idea of a 27-mile walk, even more so when I read that the “short cut” I would take was a mere 11 miles. But then, the pilgrims didn’t have to worry about their parking ticket running out, or losing mobile signal. We arrive at our chosen start-point, parking around signposting the way, and hillsides, rickety bridges days – Lanivet is a good six miles from Padstow to embarking on our journey. over babbling brooks, halfway point with plenty allow us to walk backward After a brief stretch in fields of corn (pausing for a of pubs and B&Bs. to the “beginning” of the the open air of the Camel Theresa May Moment) and Whichever stretch you trail in the harbour for a Estuary, we plunge into a field guarded by an choose, you’re guaranteed pint, before returning back comparative darkness in a intimidatingly muscular a slice of Britain’s for another (slightly more patch of ancient woodland. ram. Whatever landscape beautifully varied well-deserved) pint. The Surrounded by these you crave, the Saints Way countryside. modern pilgrimage, some gnarled trees, some of will provide it many times visitcornwall.com might say. Upon arrival, which may have even over, with even our little the heavens open. witnessed the pilgrims stretch more than To start at the beginning Determined not to let the themselves (“who are these satisfying our desires to of the Way, head to St inevitable Cornish weather clowns with their GPS escape from the rest of Petroc’s church, Padstow mar my attempt to connect phones?” they probably say humanity, and have a good (PL28 8BG) and follow the with my Christian of us), we feel miles away stare at some cows. Celtic cross markers to forefathers, we power on, from the A road we have Braver souls go the Fowey, staying at the locating the first of many previously marched down. whole hog and take the historic St Benet’s Abbey little black Celtic crosses We traverse bucolic 27 miles over a couple of at Lanivet, around halfway TOMÉ MORRISSY- SWAN’S REWILDING WALK AT KNEPP ink, stoats and of wild flowers, a bird polecats scurry rustles and shoots off – a through the wood pigeon, an M scrubby inauspicious start.