The British Pilgrimage Trust has had a productive and exciting year. We have been working hard to realise the Trust’s vision, creating a set of effective and powerful tools for supporting the practice of pilgrimage across Britain.
Guided pilgrimages
– In 2017, the Trust held 11 pilgrimages, giving over 400 people access to the practice.
– In 2018 we guided 10 overnight and day pilgrimages along the Old Way.
– In 2019, we will continue to offer guided pilgrimages, averaging about one a month during high season.
Our Charitable Organisation
– In December 2017, the British Pilgrimage Trust registered with the Charity Commission (Charity No. 1176045).
– We have been improving our website with a new route ‘gpx’ download system and have been developing our mapping technology.
– We gave talks at conferences and events, have been featured several times on National Radio, TV, and the Trust has been the subject of national magazine and newspaper articles (see lists below).
Will’s work:
– Will walked the Old Way in April from beginning to end for the first time, for 3 weeks, meeting local people and tuning in with the story of the route. He shared the sights and sounds he witnessed through an inspiring social media campaign.
– He walked the Old Way a second time this year in October-November, this time theming his pilgrimage around WWI, calling it the ‘100 Silences’ pilgrimage, a silence at each war memorial along the Old Way.
– The Old Way route is now available for download here.
– Apuldram, a very small parish, needed help to find money to create pilgrim accommodation with their church, so Will created a crowdfunding video for and 12K people saw it, which helped raise the £9k needed for the building conversion.
Guy’s work:
– Guy spent the first few months of 2018 planning out and costing the Old Way to achieve the mapping of the route, helping the communities of holy places to receive pilgrims, and building the relationships with other organisations and local people that will make the route sustainable.
– He has been working with English Heritage since September to produce several new routes that visit their sites – this exciting project is launching in April.
– He has been working with the Church Times and cathedral staff around England to produce 1-day pilgrimage routes to cathedrals, so far 4 have been added to the website, with more to follow in 2019-20.
– He has coordinated with the Dean of Santiago Cathedral, Confraternity of St James, A Coruna City Council and the Friends of the Finchale Camino to gain official Camino recognition for the ‘Finchale Camino Ingles’ (Durham) to be recognised as a part of the Camino Inglés.
– He met with the Scottish Pilgrim Routes Forum, and is exploring way that our two organisation might support each other in the future.
– Guy has also been in contact with the route creators/managers of the 70+ routes on the BPT website’s Routes Directory, and has been adding routes to it as they emerge.
2019 plans:
– Will is writing a guidebook for a pilgrimage route from Southampton to Canterbury: The Old Way.
– Guy is promoting pilgrimage around Britain – creating a series of web resources – including Events and Routes Directories – which will help publicise pilgrimages taking place in Britain.
A great deal has been achieved already – and having built a national conversation about pilgrimage, we’re making sure we walk our talk and revitalise this vital tradition in our land.
See you on the path!
Will and Guy
Radio
– BBC Radio 4 here, here and here
– BBC Radio 4 ‘Turtle Dove Pilgrimage’ Documentary
– BBC Radio 4’s ‘Making History’
– BBC Regional Radio Networks Under the Skin (Russell Brand podcast)
– NPR Marketplace in America
TV
– BBC2
– Channel 4 here and here and here
– ARTE European TV segment on route near Canterbury
Print
– The Guardian
– The Telegraph
– The Oldie
– Wanderlust
– Saga Magazine
– The Idler (self-written)
– Positive News (self-written)
– OYA Magazine (self-written, translated into German)
– Passion Passport (Californian Lifestyle/Travel Magazine)
– The Church Times
– Net-a-Porter Magazine
– Die Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Swiss newspaper)
– Green Pilgrimage Network
– Guardian ‘20 Walks’
– Country Living
– Calm Moment Magazine
– National Churches Trust Annual Report 2018
– Church Times here and here
– Sussex Express
– Arundel’s The Bell
– Suitcase Magazine
– Brixton Bugle
– Southampton Echo
Talks/Appearances
– The Sustainable Food Trust’s ‘Harmony’ Conference
– The CCT’s Wellbeing Conference
– Shambala Festival
– ‘Mind, Body, Spirit’ Wellbeing Festival (Kensington Olympia)
– The Gatekeeper Conference
– The Green Pilgrimage Network at Canterbury Cathedral
– The AGM of the Confraternity of St James at Southwark Cathedral.
– COP23 Climate Change Conference in Bonn (with Marc Andrus, Bishop of California)
– The Churches Conservation Trust Volunteer AGM
– Cowdray Festival of Wellbeing
– The Future of UK Food and Farming post-Brexit, at Fir Farm, Upper Slaughter (Sustainable Food Trust)
– The Future of Food and Farming, Dumfries House, Glasgow (Sustainable Food Trust)
– Cathedral Deans Conference
– PINC Conference, Holland
– Mind, Body, Spirit Festival, London
– Association of English Cathedrals AGM
– National Cathedrals Conference, Manchester (Example Talk included in link)
– The Green Pilgrimage Network/North Downs Way 25th Anniversary at Wye Church
