British Pilgrimage Trust

05/11/2026

Tonight in Ottery St Mary, in East Devon, the fire moves.

Every 5 November, people from the town lift barrels lined with burning tar onto their shoulders and run them through the streets. The children carry small ones first, from late afternoon. By midnight the biggest barrel of the night is alight in the town square. It is not unusual for three generations of one family to carry on the same night.

Nobody can say for certain how it began. Most accounts point to the Gunpowder Plot and the 1600s. Others reach further back, to fire carried through a town to drive out what people feared in the dark.

Nobody remembers exactly why. They carry it anyway.
Traditions like this are worth walking to. Time a pilgrimage to arrive on a night like tonight, and the journey becomes even more special.

Our Old Way passes through Lewes, in East Sussex, which keeps its own Bonfire Night. There the fires also remember 17 martyrs burned in the town between 1555 and 1557. The Old Way stage from Lewes to Alfriston carries their story.

04/11/2026

Some places draw people back, century after century.

Canterbury, where Chaucer’s pilgrims were heading. Walsingham, where kings walked the last mile barefoot. The tidal sands to Holy Island. St Davids and Bardsey, once worth half and a third of a journey to Rome. Iona, where Columba stepped ashore.

These are among the most walked pilgrimages in Britain, and every one of them is still walked today. You don’t need to belong to any tradition to go. Just set an intention and begin.

You’ll find these routes and hundreds more, with free maps, on our website. Follow the link in our bio.

02/11/2026

Today is All Souls. Yesterday we remembered the saints. Today is for our own: the ones who raised us, taught us, nursed us, and the friends we lost this year.
In London, the Choir of Westminster Abbey sings Fauré’s Requiem at the All Souls Eucharist today at 5pm. Everyone is welcome, free of charge, and you can watch online. Many cathedrals and churches across Britain hold their own All Souls service, often reading the names of the departed aloud.
Most people in Britain have never heard of All Souls. We kept the party on Hallowe’en and forgot the feast that followed. Yet for centuries this was one of the most important days of the year. Families prayed for their dead, and children went souling from door to door for soul cakes.
A fixed day each year opens a window we might otherwise never get round to opening.
Some say we can also remember the lights that have gone out. The biologist Rupert Sheldrake and Marc Andrus, former Episcopal Bishop of California, suggest that on All Souls we name not only our own dead, but the creatures and peoples that have vanished from the places we live.
Wolves, beavers and cranes lived here into historical times, and many were lost because of us. Now beavers and cranes are coming back, and Andrus notes that when a lost species returns, others often follow.
His idea is that a parish or school studies what once lived in its place, then names those lost creatures and peoples aloud in the service. He has yet to find a parish willing to try it. Perhaps a British one could be first.
So today, write down your names. Your grandparents. The teacher who believed in you. The nurse who sat with you. The friend you still think of. Thank each of them, whatever you felt towards them.
Then go further. Who else once lived where you live now? What birds sang there, what animals walked those fields, what people kept those paths before you?
Take the names with you on a walk. To a churchyard, a riverbank, a hilltop, a path you once shared. Light a candle when you arrive.

01/11/2026

Today is All Hallows, the feast of every saint, known and unknown. Tomorrow is All Souls, for everyone else. The ones who raised us, the friends we lost this year, the names nobody else remembers.
“Hallow” is Old English for a holy person, so All Hallows means All Saints. Last night, Hallowe’en, was its eve. In the 8th century Pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel in St Peter’s, Rome, to all the saints on 1 November, and in time the whole Western Church kept the date.
All Saints is one of the most common church names in England, so today hundreds of parishes keep their feast day. If one lies within walking distance, walk to it.
Tomorrow belongs to our own dead. Children and the poor once went souling from door to door, offering to pray for a household’s dead in return for soul cakes, small spiced buns marked with a cross. Shakespeare knew the custom: in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, a lovesick young man is mocked for whining “like a beggar at Hallowmas”.
Few medieval Christians expected to go straight to heaven. Most expected purgatory, and the prayers of the living could shorten their stay. At the Reformation, prayer for the dead was condemned and All Souls dropped from the Prayer Book. The day crept back. After the First World War, when almost everyone had lost someone, it became widely loved again. In Catholic countries it never went away, and Italian cemeteries still fill with candles.
On the North York Moors, the Lyke Wake Dirge was sung while watching over the dead. It tells of a soul crossing a wild, thorny moor and the Bridge of Dread alone, helped only by the good it did in life. The path we walk, and the kindness we offer along it, shapes the journey beyond.
Write down the names of your dead, including friends lost this year. Thank each of them for their part in your life, whatever you felt towards them. Visit a grave, light a candle, or walk in silence for someone you miss.
Every pilgrimage can be an act of remembrance.
Read more on keeping Allhallowtide via the link in our bio.

31/10/2026

Samhain. Summer's end, and the first night of winter.

Across the Gaelic-speaking Highlands and islands of Scotland, Samhainn marked the close of the harvest. In Wales the same night is Nos Galan Gaeaf, the eve of the first day of winter. It was an ysbrydnos, a spirit night, when spirits were said to walk abroad, and in some homes food was left out for the dead.

For as long as anyone can remember, this has been a time of coming home. The herds walked down from the high pastures. The last apples were carried in. What could not be kept through the winter was killed and salted, and the Welsh named the month for it: Tachwedd, the slaughter.

On the hills of Wales the fires went up, as high as anyone could build them. When they burned low, everyone ran for home through the dark, ahead of the tailless black sow said to take the last one left on the hill. In Scotland, guisers went door to door in disguise, carrying lanterns cut from turnips. Halloween's costumes and lanterns grew out of these customs, and even its name is Scots, from All Hallows' Een, the night before All Saints.

Our ancestors walked into winter not knowing if there would be enough. They went anyway, carrying fire, carrying food, carrying the names of their dead.

A pilgrim at Samhain walks the same way. Towards a place that matters, with their ancestors held in mind.

The year is turning towards its darkest point, and it can feel as though more than the year is turning. Under the cold fields the winter wheat is already sown: underground, in the dark, waiting to grow.

In 51 days the sun turns back.

Tonight is for remembering the people who came before us, whatever you believe becomes of them. This weekend, write down the names of those you miss. Then walk them somewhere they would know: a churchyard, a hilltop, a path you once shared. Light a candle when you arrive.

Where do these customs really come from? Read the story on our website, https://www.britishpilgrimage.org/stories/days-of-the-dead-hallows-ancestors-honoured

16/10/2026

In the run-up to Halloween, the traditional time to honour your ancestors, walk the Sovereign Line across London with Guy Hayward.
It’s the old route taken by monarchs, five miles from the Tower of London to Westminster Abbey. Along the way we stop at London’s Temple of Mithras, London Stone, the Roman bath on Strand Lane, St Stephen Walbrook and St Paul’s, with London folk and sacred songs on the path.
At the end of the day you can stay for choral evensong at Westminster Abbey, sung by the choir who sang at King Charles III’s Coronation.
Thursday 29 October, 10am to 4.30pm, starting from Tower Hill. Free and subsidised places are available for anyone who needs one.

Book your place: https://www.britishpilgrimage.org/events/london-ancestors-pilgrimage

With BPT’s Guy Hayward singing London folk songs along the way, you will delve into the heart of England’s history in the modern city.

13/10/2026

Today is the feast of St Edward the Confessor, king of England for 24 years, whose death created the conditions for the Norman Conquest, and the man who gave London its abbey.

As a young exile, Edward vowed that if he ever came home safely he would walk to St Peter’s in Rome. When he became king, his council would not let him leave. The story goes that the Pope released him from his vow if he built a church to St Peter in England instead. That church is Westminster Abbey. The king who could not make his pilgrimage built a place of pilgrimage.

Edward died in January 1066 and was buried in front of the high altar. Almost a hundred years later he was made a saint, and on 13 October 1163 his body was moved to a wonderful shrine that still has a powerfully palpable feel. On the same date in 1269, Henry III gave him a new shrine of Italian mosaic. At the Reformation almost 500 years ago it was stripped of its gold and jewels, but Edward is still there, at the centre of the Abbey.

This Saturday, 17 October, the Abbey opens from 9am to 4pm for its National Pilgrimage, when anyone can come and pray or sit at Edward’s shrine. It is free and there is no need to book. If you can’t wait, there is a feast day service tonight sung by the choir at 5pm, also free and open to all. More info online: https://www.westminster-abbey.org/edwardtide

Will you ever find your way to Edward’s shrine?

09/10/2026

Join us this Sunday for a day pilgrimage from the salt marshes at Wells-next-the-Sea to the shrine at Walsingham, guided by BPT’s Guy Hayward.

We walk inland from the North Norfolk coast to one of the great pilgrimage destinations of medieval England, arriving on foot as pilgrims have for nearly a thousand years.

Visit our website for more info and to book your place
https://www.britishpilgrimage.org/events/walsingham-day-pilgrimage-from-salt-marsh-to-shrine

Arrive at the famous pilgrimage destination of Walsingham in an unforgettable way from the dramatic salt marshes of the North Norfolk coast. Guided by BPT's Guy Hayward.