Archbishop Sarah Mullally has begun her pilgrimage to Canterbury by calling at Southwark Cathedral for a blessing.

Earlier Archbishop Sarah had set out from St Paul’s, her former cathedral seat, and crossed the River Thames to Bankside.

She will be arriving at Canterbury Cathedral for her enthronement as Primate of All England on foot as thousands of pilgrims have before her.

‘As I prepare for my installation at Canterbury Cathedral, it feels deeply humbling to be following in the footsteps of those who have walked this ancient route,’ commented the Archbishop on her first day.

On Wednesday she will be enthroned in the Chair of St Augustine during the installation service marking the start of her public ministry as Archbishop of Canterbury.

The party walking with the Archbishop gathered in the Harvard Chapel where the Dean of Southwark, the Very Revd Mark Oakley, reminded everyone that her predecessor, martyr Thomas Becket, made his last journey to Canterbury from Southwark.

Verger Robert Biden stamped the pilgrim passport designed by pupils from Ospringe Church of England Primary School in Faversham.

Among those present to see the Archbishop leave were former editor of The Times Sir Simon Jenkins and historian Alice Loxton.

Walking with the Archbishop and her husband Eamonn is Canterbury Cathedral’s Pilgrimage Officer Torin Brown.

Arrival at Canterbury is planned for Sunday afternoon.

The new Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally is to leave London on foot for her enthronement at Canterbury Cathedral.

‘As I prepare for my installation at Canterbury Cathedral, it feels deeply humbling to be following in the footsteps of those who have walked this ancient route,’ says Archbishop Sarah.

On St Patrick’s Day next Tuesday, she will leave from St Paul’s Cathedral before crossing the Thames to Southwark Cathedral. Walking with her husband Eamonn, she plans to reflect on her journey from Bishop of London to Archbishop of Canterbury.

A special pilgrim passport has been produced for the journey by pupils from Ospringe Church of England Primary School in Faversham.

The Archbishop’s walking party, which will include Canterbury Cathedral pilgrim officer Torin Brown, is to give out cards featuring a prayer written by pupils from The Archbishop’s School in Canterbury.

In addition to village churches, stops will include Lesnes Abbey, Rochester Cathedral and Aylesford Priory.

The plan is to arrive at Canterbury on Passion Sunday afternoon 22 March before evensong .

Archbishop Sarah is to be installed as primate three days later on the Feast of the Annunciation.

‘For centuries, faithful pilgrims have flocked to Canterbury, and I will be reflecting on this tradition as we make our way through the Kent countryside and its towns and cities,’ says the new Archbishop.

‘I’m looking forward to visiting local churches, cathedrals and holy sites along the route – and to meeting people, praying with them and hearing their stories. As I walk this path I will be praying for our Church and our world, and asking God to bless those we meet.

‘Every Christian life is a pilgrimage – a journey with God. As I begin this new chapter in my own life and ministry, I am grateful to be walking with God and with others.’

Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz, whose work is found in Rome, Santiago de Compostela and Fatima, has donated a striking image to Canterbury.

The new artwork is outside St Thomas of Canterbury Church in Burgate.

The bronze work takes the form of a long seat with a life-size pilgrim or an angel, depending on where you are standing, sitting at one end.

It is similar, but not the same, as one commissioned by the Vatican and placed last year at the side of St Peter’s Square.

Canterbury’s will almost also certainly form a focus for pilgrims and photographs.

The church, close to the cathedral, is part of the pilgrim destination as it displays St Thomas Becket relics alongside those of St Oscar Romero.

In Santiago the sculpture is outside the Pilgrim Office but is dramatically different as there Jesus lies on the bench with just a little room left for a pilgrim to join him.

The figure is wrapped in a blanket with his identity only revealed by the wounds on his feet.

The inspiration says Timothy Schmalz is Matthew 25: ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was homeless and you gave me shelter.’

His Homeless Jesus was installed and blessed last year, two days before St James’s Day, by the Archbishop of Santiago.

Homeless Jesus is also found at Fatima.

The woods around Lesnes Abbey have London’s largest display of wild daffodils.

The familiar yellow flowers are appearing now and will reach their peak this month.

There are also crocuses near the abbey fish pond and blossom in the monks’ garden.

**Lesnes Abbey is between Shooters Hill and Dartford on the second stage out of London.

The Pilgrims’ Way starts in Winchester and Southwark before converging at Otford.

Both starting points have a St Valentine resonance.

On the edge of Winchester the PW passes through the remains of Hyde Abbey. Here one of the treasured relics was the head of St Valentine which had been given by Canute’s Queen Emma, mother of Edward the Confessor.

The community observed a Valentine octave which meant that the celebrations continued for just over a week .

Hyde Abbey’s seal depicted St Valentine holding his head.

[The relic was lost at the Reformation when the monastery was dissolved. There may have been three Valentines so although San Anton in Madrid displays a ‘skull and bones of St Valentine’ and Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome has a head there is no confirmed connection with Winchester.]

This highlighting of Valentine in Winchester was long before he became associated with love or romance.

Those responsible for that connection and triggering today’s popularity are to be found in Southwark.

Southwark Cathedral ‘s most splendid tomb belongs to John Gower.

His Ballades ‘Saint Valentin l’amour et la nature’ and ‘Saint Valentin, plus qe null Emperour’, written about 1390, make him one of the first to suggest Valentine had a connection with love.

This was nine years after his friend Geoffrey Chaucer is writing in his Parliament of Foules ‘…this was on Seynt Valentyne’s day/Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate’.

St Valentine, patron of engaged couples and young people, joins St Christopher and St James in being patron of travellers.

On Sunday Southwark Cathedral’s Evensong was sung at Southwark’s St George’s Roman Catholic Cathedral to mark the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

The service was simultaneous with a Unity Vespers at Rome’s Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls where Pope Leo presided.

At St George’s the Dean of Southwark preached and a combined choir provided the music.

Roman Catholic Vespers will be sung by the choirs at Southwark Cathedral on Sunday afternoon 21 June.

St George’s Cathedral is an additional starting point for pilgrims to Canterbury. The Roman Catholic cathedral has the Oscar Romero national shrine.

Pilgrims can follow the short Romero Way from St George’s Cathedral to Southwark Cathedral for the ancient beginning of the Pilgrims’ Way to Canterbury.

Two lost mosaic panels depicting the Tabard Inn ‘are in reasonable
condition’ according to a report submitted to Southwark Council.

The Livesey Trust Annual Report 2024/25 highlights the large scenes which were removed from public display in 1967 to make way for the Bricklayers Arms flyover in Old Kent Road.

They show the pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales gathering at The Tabard in Southwark’s Borough High Street before setting out for Canterbury and on their return feasting.

The report, by Southwark Council’s Head of Culture Eva Gomez, concedes that the bright life-size outdoor artworks have ‘one or two losses and loose pieces’.

With a proposal to remove traffic from the flyover and create a high level garden this might be the moment to bring the panels out of storage and place them back restored on the Pilgrims’ Way which runs across the Bricklayers Arms roundabout.

The Pilgrims’ Way from Winchester to Canterbury is the UK’s second most popular route according to the British Pilgrimage Trust.

‘For many, the appeal of pilgrimage lies not simply in the act of walking, but in walking towards the unknown in search of something meaningful,’ claims the Trust which welcomes the King’s Christmas message featuring pilgrimage.

The top route is the St James Way from Reading to Southampton which briefly shares the same path around Hyde Abbey outside Winchester.

The St James Way is the first section of the Camino Ingles which continues from La Coruna to Santiago de Compostela.

Also just announced is the number for pilgrims arriving by all routes in Santiago last year. The total, at 530,987, is more than half a million.

The Pilgrims’ Way also has a London starting point at Southwark Cathedral and although not recorded by the Trust there is an ever growing number of people setting out on this Chaucer route beginning in Southwark.

Chaucer is not known to have visited Winchester although he did go to Southampton. His business and civic duties took him up and down the Kentish road out of London.

‘Pilgrimage is an ancient practice, but its renewed appeal today reflects contemporary pressures such as the pace of modern life and constant connectivity,’ says the statement from the Trust marking the survey release.

‘Setting out on foot along routes shaped by centuries of use offers a deliberate contrast, creating space for reflection and attentiveness to landscape and history.’

The Trust adds: ‘At a time when many people feel divided from one another, pilgrimage can offer something quietly radical: common ground. By walking alongside others, sometimes alone, sometimes in silence and sometimes in conversation, people often find it easier to listen and connect.’

Monday 29 December is the anniversary of St Thomas Becket’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral.

At Canterbury Cathedral there will be celebrations of The Eucharist at the Altar of Swordspoint at 8am and 12.30pm.

The Roman Catholic Mass is at noon at St Thomas of Canterbury Church in nearby Burgate. The church is home to relics of Becket including a piece of finger bone, once held by Pontigny Abbey where St Thomas stayed during his years of exile, and a fragment of his vestment.

St Thomas was martyred on the fifth day of Christmas 1170 at the start of vespers so the Cathedral evensong on this day has long been a special occasion. At 5.30pm The Memorial Service for the Martyrdom of St Thomas largely takes the form of evensong with short graphic readings from TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral.

The play was writtten for performance in the cathedral’s chapter house.

The service will be sung by Canterbury Chamber Choir. The anthem is by John Rutter and hymns include In our day of thanksgiving. The Bishop of Richborough will preach.

At 7.30pm there will be Solemn Vespers in the Cathedral Crypt.

The day is one of pilgrimage but more by car or public transport rather than foot. There was never a huge number of pilgrims from afar on this day due to the weather and short daylight hours.

The Translation of St Thomas on 7 July was the better attended occasion and remains so today.

The Christmas carol Bethlehem Down was written by poet Bruce Blunt in 1927 whilst between two pubs on the Pilgrims’ Way.

He was walking from The Plough in Bishop’s Sutton to The Anchor on the outskirts of Ropley in Hampshire.

Both pubs are now closed. The Plough, on the corner of Water Lane, suffered a serious fire and having been rebuilt is now a private house. The Anchor, near Ropley Watercress Line Station, is a steak house restaurant.

Within a few days Blunt had sent the words to composer Peter Warlock who lived at Eynsford on the Southwark branch of the Pilgrims’ Way. His cottage is today marked by a blue plaque.

Bruce Blunt was hoping the two might have some money for seasonal drinking, or an ‘immortal carouse’ as he called it, and so they entered their work in the annual Daily Telegraph carol competition.

They won and the carol appeared in the paper’s Christmas Eve issue.

The tune was for a congregation but in 1930 Warlock arranged a solo version. The manuscript was received by Lancaster Priory on the day he died.

Peter Warlock, born Philip Heseltine, was the father of art critic Brian Sewell.

Bruce Blunt is buried in the churchyard at Bishop’s Sutton where his carol is often sung on Christmas morning.

Bethlehem Down

When He is King we will give him the King’s gifts,
Myrrh for its sweetness, and gold for a crown,
“Beautiful robes”, said the young girl to Joseph
Fair with her first-born on Bethlehem Down.

Bethlehem Down is full of the starlight
Winds for the spices, and stars for the gold,
Mary for sleep, and for lullaby music
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.

When He is King they will clothe Him in grave-sheets,
Myrrh for embalming, and wood for a crown,
He that lies now in the white arms of Mary
Sleeping so lightly on Bethlehem Down.

Here He has peace and a short while for dreaming,
Close-huddled oxen to keep Him from cold,
Mary for love, and for lullaby music
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.