Artist Michelle Rumney was at Southwark Cathedral on Sunday to measure more people for her Lent art installation. Bishop Peter Price and actor Timothy West were among the many who were measured to be part of the artwork. In Medieval times your body (or dead body) could be measured from head to toe with a […]

Pilgrims and intending Canterbury pilgrims are being invited to drop in at Southwark Cathedral on Sunday. ‘Measuring the saint’ is an old custom involving making a candle to the height of a particular saint. The saint in question this time is St Thomas of Canterbury, better known as Thomas Becket, whose 850th anniversary of martyrdom […]

The Daily Telegraph today carries an obituary for Bobby Neame whose name is associated with Bishop’s Finger ale. It is appropriate that the Pilgrims’ Way has its own ale since St Thomas Becket is the patron of the Brewers’ Company. Bishops Finger ale takes its name from the finger-shaped signposts pointing pilgrims the way to […]

Sunday 29 December is St Thomas of Canterbury Day when the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket during Christmas 1170 is remembered. It will be a low-key day as this year it is a Sunday when most churches are keeping Holy Family Sunday or First Sunday of Christmas. At Canterbury Cathedral there is evensong at 3.15pm […]

Part of the 12th-century St Lawrence Chapel on the PW at Upper Halling near the River Medway is for sale. The chapel dates from just after Thomas Becket’s death and had a chaplain until 1547. After the Reformation, when Henry VIII banned pilgrimage to Canterbury, the chapel was used by drovers and other travellers for […]

Since the publication of Walking The Pilgrims’ Way in 2017 there has been reader and walker feedback as well as ongoing research. This recently resulted in a welcome change to the path running out of Otford towards Kemsing. As at Otford, there is a problem of an unpopular busy road at Godmersham. The present guide […]

It is known that for centuries the Bishop of Winchester had a residence in Southwark. The ruin of the great hall is in Clink Street. Winchester Walk, opposite the present Southwark Cathedral west end, is the old palace entrance with Winchester Square being the surviving courtyard. But where were the other houses known to pilgrims? […]

Some church candles were once made to the height of a deceased person being remembered. Sometimes they were the same height of a living person needing our prayers. Candles representing pilgrims, the dead and others will form just part next year’s Lent art installation being created by Michelle Rumney for Southwark Cathedral. Lent starts on […]

TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral is being performed by Scena Mundi theatre company at Southwark Cathedral this week and two more performances are due next Tuesday and Wednesday. This is the story of St Thomas Becket’s murder in 1170 at Canterbury. Staging a production at Southwark has resonance for the Archbishop visited the then […]

Today in the church calendar is Blessed John Henry Newman’s ‘optional memorial’. Next year it will be St John Henry Newman’s Day because this coming Sunday he is to be declared a saint by Pope Francis during an open air Mass in Rome. Newman is England’s first post-Reformation saint. He has left us his popular […]