St Peter's Way

St Peter’s Way, Greensted to Bradwell, Essex – 40 miles, 4 days

Highlights

• Oldest wooden church in the world
• Nature-rich River Roding Valley
• Bird-filled Hanningfield Reservoir
• Mundon’s Petrified Oaks
• St Peter’s on the Wall, Bradwell

This pilgrimage leads you from the heart of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Essex, from the oldest wooden church in the world, St Andrew’s, Greensted, as an initial extension to the route which officially starts at Ongar Castle.

The route takes you all the way to one of Britain’s most ancient and remote churches – St Peter’s-On-The-Wall, which has attracted pilgrims over the flat expanse of saltmarsh at Bradwell for over a millennium.

Follow in their footsteps as you venture through some of the most spectacular countryside in Essex through ancient woodland, over commons and hills, and down to the salt marshes on estuaries and coastline. You will walk across some of Britain’s most fertile farmland, weaving your way along the wildlife-rich River Roding, via a C12th church at Blackmore, and from the fragments of the lost Writtle Forest toward the bird-rich waters of Hanningfield Reservoir. Pay your respects to the rescued C14th Mundon Church and the skeletal limbs of the Mundon Oaks will beckon you toward the sea, until you discover Saint Peter’s lonely shrine at the edge of the island. Some 1,500 pilgrims make their way here every July, but you can visit this stark, sacred place at any time of year.

Holy Places listed in Britain’s Pilgrim Places book: Greensted; Bradwell-on-Sea.

The Othona Community can offer very reasonable accommodation and food for pilgrims, as individuals or in private groups. The Othona community is Christian but open to all, regardless of beliefs, background and race.