The label for Carolean Crown, a limited edition ale brewed to mark the Coronation of King Charles III, is based on a pub sign found on the Pilgrims’ Way in Southwark. The pub’s name is a reference to the future Charles II hiding in an oak tree during the Cromwellian period. The pub sign, above […]

Morris dancers will be up early on the two high points of the Pilgrims’ Way on May Day, Monday 1 May. On St Martha’s Hill near Guildford the Pilgrim Morris are being joined by the Guildford Vox Community Choir at 5am to await, with song in the darkness, sunrise at 5.35am. Further east the Kingston […]

Darren Merrill above the Old Kent Road and looking down to Tesco

The Annunciation 2023, on Saturday 25 March, is the 900th anniversary of the founding in 1123 of Smithfield’s St Bartholomew priory dedicated to looking after the sick. The church survived to feature in Four Weddings and a Funeral and its infirmary is now the famous Bart’s Hospital. A silver chalice being used during this afternoon’s […]

Today Shrove Tuesday 2023 is the 850th anniversary of Archbishop Thomas Becket’s canonisation. In 1173 this day 21 February was Ash Wednesday. St Thomas of Canterbury, as he is also known, was murdered on 29 December 1170 during Vespers in Canterbury Cathedral. The news which had shocked England, including even Henry II, reached Pope Alexander […]

Arrangements for the feast of St Thomas Becket, or St Thomas of Canterbury, at Canterbury Cathedral this Thursday 29 December have been announced: 8am Eucharist at Altar of the Swordspoint in the Martyrdom. 12.30pm Eucharist. 3pm Solemn Evensong & procession. The liturgy incudes passages from TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral and the hymn In […]

Today Wednesday 30 November is St Andrew’s Day which was a very special day on the Pilgrims’ Way at Botley Abbey, where there was a relic, and at the very last church before Canterbury Cathedral. Arriving on foot in Canterbury to visit Thomas Becket’s shine in the Cathedral before the Reformation you would not have […]

Southwark Cathedral has been strengthening and highlighting its links with Canterbury Cathedral to which it sends pilgrims. Last Saturday the Friends of Southwark Cathedral completed their pilgrimage to Canterbury after a delay of two years. Southwark Cathedral, being the starting point for many pilgrims, planned the walk for the Thomas Becket anniversary year 2020. But […]

London Bridge has long been the start of the pilgrimage to Canterbury. This weekend it also becomes the start of the pilgrimage to Walsingham. The Norfolk village holds the restored shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham which is a replica of her house in Nazareth. Southwark Cathedral on London Bridge’s south end is the established […]