Author Archives: PilgrimNancy

The last two days have mostly been walked in glorious sunshine with welcomes at the churches matching those at the earlier churches in warmth and generosity. Continue reading →

The four main pilgrims (Poppy, John, Linda and I) have now reached and passed the halfway point between York and Bridlington and we are well into the chalk scenery of the Wolds. The overwhelming positive feature of this walk has been the wonderful welcome we have received from members of the churches along our route. Continue reading →

After a two day rest to re-gather ourselves we had a brilliant send off from York Minster with the dean, Vivienne Faulds taking us down in the crypt by the shrine of St William of York, to pray for us and send us out on our journey. Continue reading →

The last few days have seen greater mileages per day and more people walking with us. Continue reading →

Our journeying this week has been mostly river path along the Tees and field paths. So easy flat walking you would think. Some of the trouble has been that the field paths have been either overgrown or non-existent, which has meant we have had more road waking than we would have liked. Continue reading →

We managed to arrive in Durham in glorious sunshine in time for the prayers at the shrine of St Cuthbert in the cathedral. It felt very right to light a candle there and join in the prayers along with others and was good to meet Robin and Janet from York there. Continue reading →

We are now walking the stretch of the route between Hexham in Northumberland and the River Tees which takes us into North Yorkshire through county Durham. It started with a service at Hexham Abbey entitled ‘Journeying without stuff’. We were welcome by curate, Phil Mellor-Smith and The Rector, Graham Usher. Graham interviewed us about the pilgrimage asking such searching questions as ‘Why put yourself through this?’ and ‘What are the essentials for your journey?’ and ‘How can the church learn from her heritage but let go of the past and journey in mission into the future? Not sure how well we answered but the congregation seemed to have their interest piqued and we were engaged in lots of conversations afterwards. Continue reading →

These last three days have seen the hardest stretch of walking on the pilgrimage. We have been walking along the edge of the Whin Sill which the Romans used to save digging a ditch on the northern side of Hadrian’s Wall. It has been very scenic countryside and we have met plenty of walkers who are ‘doing’ the Wall from east to west. Quite a number have been from Europe and it seems fitting in a way that the Auxilliaries in the Roman Army who manned the Wall came from various parts of the Roman Empire and would speak their own language as well as being drilled in Latin so they could understand their commanding Legionaries.  Continue reading →

Carlisle Cathedral did us proud in sending us off on our pilgrimage in style. The rain was falling as we arrived just in time for the main Sunday service at the cathedral and we were quickly ushered to our places. They mentioned us in the notices, in the prayers and we were invited to the front just before the end (after singing ‘To be a pilgrim’) in order to bless us on our way. Then we were given our lunch by Michael Manley (one of the residentiary canons) and met two young people Julio and Sam. Continue reading →

There is just over a week to go before we leave the east coast and head for Carlisle and the start of the Prequel pilgrimage. This walk is 250 miles and will see us visiting every church we pass and praying for the work of the congregation. There are several folk who have said they will be joining us for individual days.  We shall begin at the cathedral in Carlisle which is the only Augustinian foundation cathedral in the country. Some of the congregation will join after the service  us for a picnic and then the first five miles to Crosby-on-Eden.

Here is the route we shall be taking…

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