I’d like to walk England’s classic Pilgrim’s Way from Winchester to Canterbury. But it is a two-week commitment and that is partly why I keep putting it off. It seems like too big a first step! Hilaire Belloc wrote about pilgrimage in The Old Road and said that “the Road [is] the greatest and the most original of the spells which we inherit from the earliest pioneers of our race”. That makes me think of the Ridgeway – the other pilgrimage I want to do – which takes in Avebury, a Neolithic bar row and the Uffington White Horse. It’s also a bit shorter, so I think this is the one I will do first.
Would you make any special stops?
On the Pilgrim’s Way I would take in two stops which are familiar to me. First, the art nouveau Watts Cemetery Chapel in Compton, Surrey, which is a beautiful and sur prising pearl in the Surrey Hills. And a small detour to the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Chaldon, with its red-hued, gruesome “doom mural”. Although this is a reasonably known mural, I found it completely by accident while walking one day, so it was a happy sur prise – the sort that I imagine a pilgrimage to be full of. The depictions of the seven sins are as judgmental and unpleasant as possible. For instance, the man guilty of avarice has coins pouring out of his mouth with his legs astride a fierce fire. It makes me wonder who thought this up and what effect it had on the people who saw this every Sunday. Otherwise, I would like to stop for anything beautiful, to fall in love with old barns, flint cottages, spiders’ webs and dewy grass.
Whom would you take?
I’d like to do one alone and one with my betrothed. I know he will want to take care of me and organise it, which makes me happy, but on another level I know I need to do one in a self-sufficient way and be alone with my thoughts. I don’t find a group pilgrimage very appealing. Unless it’s a group of existing friends, I would find the presence of people distracting and unsettling. There are predictable group dynamics and conversations I wouldn’t want to be part of my pilgrimage experience.
You can transplant your favourite pub, bar or restaurant onto the route. What is it?
I don’t have a local, or regular. But I love Nardulli’s ice cream parlour in Clapham. It sells the perfect dark chocolate ice cream. My partner first took me there and I associate it with sweetness of all kinds.
Camp under the stars, or find a church hall to sleep in?
I bought a wild camping hammock about seven years ago specifically to take on a pilgrimage. I took it onto a local common and tried it out one night. It was divine. A little robin landed on the end of the hammock and bobbed and nodded at me. A skein of geese honked as they flew over me, still low in the sky, at dusk. I slept so soundly and woke up feeling like a creature of nature. So, I’d take my hammock with hopes to spy the stars twinkling through a tree canopy.
Which books would you take with you?
The Old Road by Hilaire Belloc; he describes the route from Winchester to Canterbury. It speaks to the imaginative soul’s search for a “deep” past and a “deep” England.
What’s your go-to prayer?
The Lord’s Prayer. It’s the only prayer I know by heart. It’s also the only one I need as every time I say it, it speaks directly to something I need in the moment.
What’s the singalong to keep everyone’s spirits up?
There would be no everyone – only me! And I’m not sure I want my spirits to be kept up. I would rather roam quietly and contemplate in silence. There are times which provoke quietness, sadness or thoughtfulness, and I think it is those times which catalyse important personal change and realisations.
You’re allowed one luxury in your bag. What is it?
Dark chocolate.
What would you most miss about ordinary life?
Probably the same busyness of life that I also want a break from! I often long for quiet but by its nature that means my loved ones aren’t with me, and I hate that.
Laura Dodsworth is the author of “Free Your Mind – The New World of Manipulation and How to Resist It“.
This “On Pilgrimage With” originally appeared in the February 2024 edition of the Catholic Herald magazine. Subscribe here.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.