Picture the average modern Brit, glued to a screen, mainlining doom and rushing from one appointment to the next. Now picture the same soul lacing up boots, setting off along a muddy path with nothing but birdsong and the distant promise of a pint. The Church of England has just made that second option a touch more tempting by announcing several new pilgrimage routes across northern England.
The announcement came on 21 July, with Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, rolling out trails that feel less like corporate wellness schemes and more like gentle nudges back towards something older and sturdier. There is St Bega’s Way, a 36-mile tramp through the Lake District National Park connecting the Norman priory at St Bees with the pre-Norman church near Bassenthwaite Lake. Then comes the modest but atmospheric Spurn Point Way, seven miles from Kilnsea to the tip of Spurn Head, honouring a seventh-century hermit who clearly knew the value of peace and quiet.
Down in South Cumbria the Kent Estuary Pilgrim Way offers five circular walks and one proper 30-mile loop, tying together villages whose church bells have been ringing for centuries. In the Yorkshire Dales, Fountains Ways provides three circular trails linking eight village churches, complete with a nine-mile stretch that ambles past Studley Royal Park and the ruins of Fountains Abbey. The star turn, though, is the Paulinus Pilgrim Trail: an 87-mile epic from Todmorden to York that follows in the footsteps of the first Bishop of York, taking in Dewsbury Minster and fragments of the cross associated with St Paulinus himself.
Walking at the pace of history
These paths are not marketing gimmicks dressed up in incense. They stitch together coast, countryside, historic sites and living communities, encouraging the sort of travel best done at walking pace. The timing is no accident. Next year marks 1400 years since St Paulinus baptised King Edwin, a moment that helped plant Christianity deep in Northumbria. Rather than treat that anniversary as dusty academic fodder, the Church has decided to get people out of their cars and into the landscape that shaped it.
Pilgrimage teaches us to slow down, to notice the world around us, and to become more attentive to God and to one another. These new pilgrimage routes across the North invite people to discover afresh the beauty, history and spirituality of this extraordinary part of the country. Whether you walk in faith, curiosity or simply in search of peace and reflection, pilgrimage has the power to change us.
That is Cottrell speaking, and it is hard to argue with the premise. In an age that peddles constant distraction, the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other while contemplating older, deeper things feels almost radical. No placards, no slogans, just paths, prayer and the quiet insistence that Britain’s Christian heritage still has something worthwhile to offer.
The routes are framed as open to everyone, whether the devout, the curious or those simply in need of a decent walk and a moment’s reflection. Some even come with family-friendly Church Explorer activities for the smaller pilgrims. In other words, this is pilgrimage as social glue rather than ideological wedge: wholesome, unpretentious and rooted in the very ground beneath our feet.
