Churn Knob, Blewbury

A 12-mile pilgrimage route between Churn Knob, where St Birinus preached, and Dorchester Abbey, which housed his shrine, has been revived in recent years

Highlights

• Preaching place of St Birinus

Churn Knob is a rather small tumulus on the side of Churn Hill. It is a long walk up here, with spectacular views over the Berkshire plains. In the 7th century, people gathered at the base of this mound to hear the missionary St Birinus spread the good news. With such a vista before him, it must have felt like he was preaching to half of southern England. And over the course of his lifetime, that is pretty much what he did.

If you stand where the Apostle of Wessex stood all those years ago, the views are just as panoramic and the situation not much changed either in terms of preaching potential. The iron-age mound sits in the middle of a field near the summit of Churn Hill, a steep walk up from Blewbury village. St Birinus delivered his own version of the Sermon on the Mount here in the year 634. Among those gathered to listen was King Cynegils of Wessex, who subsequently converted to Christianity.

In the year 2000, the local vicar decided to emulate St Birinus by erecting a 16-foot wooden cross here. It stood for six years until it was removed due to planning restrictions relating to scheduled monuments. Ironically, Churn Knob is less than 200m from a prominent mobile phone mast at the top of the hill. The cross lay abandoned on the ground beside the tumulus when I visited, weeds wrapping themselves around its limbs.

St Birinus led a hugely successful mission to convert and baptise the people of Wessex, operating from his monastery at Dorchester-on-Thames (see next entry). He triumphed in the face of treacherous sea journeys, suspicious kings, and hostile pagan tribes. But they hadn’t invented district council planning departments back in his day.

For some reason, pagan sites don’t lend themselves that well to reuse by Christians. The orphaned church tower on Glastonbury Tor is perhaps the most iconic example, but there are many others, some described in this book.

Several church communities hold services and pilgrimage walks from this peaceful hillside, including Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox and indeed ecumenical pilgrim groups in recent years. There is a 12-mile walking route that runs to Dorchester Abbey; look up Birinus pilgrimage route online for a map.

Directions

Walking path starts near: Westbrook Street, Blewbury OX11 9QA

W3W: professes.loft.occupy 

GPS: 51.5586N 1.2484W

The tumulus is hard to see until you are almost at the top of Churn Hill, which rises to the south of Blewbury. Park in town and take the track that starts opposite Westbrook Street (it’s called Rubble Pit Lane, but has no sign). This passes a few cottages and then narrows to a footpath. Keep going straight up for 1km, past a large depression half-way up the hill, until the footpath ends at a T-junction with a farm track. Across the field is a small wood at the hill’s summit with a mobile phone mast. To the right of that is Churn Knob, about 200m away from you across the field. You might find access impossible depending on the cultivation of the field. When I visited there was a broad swathe of uncut grass that led to Churn Knob from the furthest corner of the field, by the left-hand edge of the wood as you look uphill – a detour round the field’s circumference in order to avoid disturbing the crops. The total walk took me 20 minutes up this steep hill.