Walk to Walsingham with a Splendid New Guide

In the wrackes of Walsingham
Whom should I chuse
But the Queen of Walsingham
To be guide to my muse?

Tradition ascribes this poem-lament 'On Walsingham', penned at the time of the Reformation, to St Philip Howard, one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.

Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, was kept close prisoner in the Tower of London while outside the iconoclasts of Elizabethan England sought to raze much of the religious and cultural landscape from the nation's memory.

Walsingham, 'England's Nazareth', had outstripped even Canterbury as the pre-eminent pilgrim shrine in the 'Dowry of Mary' (the name given to England in the Middle Ages).

It was said that in 1061, a Walsingham noblewoman, Lady Richeldis de Faverches, experienced a vision in which Mary transported her soul to Nazareth and showed her the house where the Holy Family once lived and in which the Annunciation had occurred. As instructed, she had a replica of the house built in Walsingham. The Holy House, initially a simple wooden structure, became over time a richly decorated shrine, attracting pilgrims from all over Europe.

However, when Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church, he outlawed pilgrimage and the veneration of saints in 1538 and Walsingham's glory literally came crashing down during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It reverted to being just a village in Norfolk once the pilgrims stayed away. The road from London ceased to be the most bustling route in England and faded into obscurity.

As 'On Walsingham' has it:

Bitter, bitter oh to behould
The grasse to growe
Where the walls of Walsingham
So stately did shewe.

Such were the works of Walsingham
Where she did stand
Such are the wrackes as noe do shewe
Of that holy land.

…

Oules do scrike where the sweetest himnes
Lately were songe,
Toades and serpents hold their dennes
Where the palmers did throng.

The poet laments for the cultural and physical perdition, underlining an immense sense of desolation, loss - and of being lost:

Where weare gates no gates are nowe,
The waies unknowen,
Where the press of peares did pass
While her fame was far blowen.

For some 400 years, no pilgrims walked to Walsingham.

Since the 1930s, when both Catholic and Anglican shrines were re-established, there has been a revival of pilgrimage but hardly any of the 'Walsingham Matildas', as these latter-day pilgrims are affectionately known, walk much more than the final Holy Mile.

For too long the 'waies [were] unknowen' but now author Andy Bull has produced London to Walsingham Camino - a superb guide for those wishing to walk the ancient pilgrim way. His painstaking research, both sedentary and ambulatory, has produced a splendidly illustrated book, full of fascinating history, facts and practical advice.

This modern walk sometimes parts company with the old pilgrim route for the simple reason that the latter is now built over, or passes along scarily busy roads.

Nevertheless, the new 'camino' honours all the significant places en route to the 'holy land' of Walsingham. (Why camino you may ask? The answer is that it is blessed by the Confraternity of St James which oversees pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela - and indeed can contribute to this with several places of note along the way offering bona fide camino pilgrim passport stamps. Put simply, and somewhat mechanistically, any pilgrim who walks at least 25km of the Walsingham route will be able to use that 25km towards the total of 100km that must be walked in order to get the official credencial on reaching Santiago.)

The 180-mile route is split into 13 sections which can themselves be further subdivided.

Bull writes in his introduction of this 'wonderful long-distance route, on footpaths and quiet lanes, across the glorious east of England', and of his discovery, during his explorations, of the 'fundamental difference' between simply walking, and walking as a pilgrim. 'It was as profound as the gulf between speech and song,' he writes. 'To travel as a pilgrim made walking a celebration. On my journey I encountered a lost heritage, and experienced an older England: a lost land of saints, faith and observance; of wayside crosses, shrines and chapels.' Walking pilgrimages also celebrate the 'thisness' of experience and the glories of nature.

Last Saturday morning, he launched his book at Farm Street Church and then led a celebratory 'taster' along the start of the Way for those who'd come along. A Bentley and a Rolls were parked outside the church as those present went on Shanks's Pony through moneyed Mayfair and into Green Park with its magnificent plane trees. A great crested grebe sported an Elizabethan ruff on the lake in St James's Park.

There was the usual throng and scrimmage under Big Ben as the pelegrinos moseyed past Queen Boudicca and daughters and over Westminster Bridge. They passed the London Eye and Charlie Chaplin posing for the tourists, and renewed old acquaintance, got to know their fellow pilgrims or had some solitary time in time-honoured style.

The sun shone brightly as they pursued their way up the steps where Nancy was murdered by Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist and crossed London Bridge to the church of St Magnus the Martyr hard by the Monument - and the designated start of the London to Walsingham pilgrimage.

This High Anglican Church, with its Wren spire, has its own shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham and a stained-glass window shows the long-gone chapel of St Thomas on Old London Bridge from where many pilgrims would start their journeys.

Candles were lit and prayers were said. The pilgrims today included a harpist, a couple of priests, some journalists, writers and academics, activists, and sundry others, biographies unknown.

The group continued along the Thames Path and encountered another pilgrimage of a different sort. Merry chanting came from a ship going upriver. It was full of the West Ham faithful travelling in style to Chelsea for the afternoon's derby.

The Walsingham wayfarers walked past the Tower of London, prison to many martyrs and Prisoners of Conscience over the centuries, whose moat was full of beautiful wildflowers, and paused at St Katharine's Dock. Before the dock was created in the early 19th century, it had been the site of the Royal Foundation of St Katharine which had been caring for the poor and welcoming pilgrims since 1147. Its modern manifestation is just downriver - a haven for modern-day pilgrims, a retreat site and sanctuary.

Bull led the group through Wapping and Shadwell to this final destination for the day, past the great glass spire of the Shard on the opposite bank, past the historic waterfront pubs like the Prospect of Whitby, and all the former wharves - now yuppie dwellings. As the Thames snaked round, the pilgrims could see the highrise cathedrals of commerce stretching up heavenward at Canary Wharf.

There was a very warm welcome at the Foundation of St Katharine - and a delicious spread. Huge gongs were in evidence in the chapel for those attending a retreat from 'the tyranny of the digital'. Choir stalls, complete with misericords, had survived from the original medieval chapel by the Tower, and in the floor, a marble compass had at its centre a piece of orange marble from St Katharine's Monastery on Mount Sinai, the oldest surviving monastery in the world. Around it was the legend: 'We do not come to God by navigation but by Love.'

It seems that the foundation escaped dissolution at the Reformation because it was under the direct protection of Katharine of Aragon, who remained patron even after Henry VIII had divorced her. The Foundation's patron saint is Catherine of Alexandria - one of the most popular saints in medieval Europe. It was the Knights of St Catherine who once guarded the road to Nazareth and the Holy House, a replica of which is at the centre of Walsingham devotion.

This was a delightful introductory pilgrimage in miniature along the Walsingham Way. Andy Bull's superb guide is a must for pilgrims, walkers and lovers of culture.

London to Walsingham Camino - The Pilgrimage Guide by Andy Bull published by Trailblazer Guides £17.99

See: www.trailblazer-guides.com