On Saturday 5 April we are holding a reunion to mark 50 years since our first pilgrimage (31 Mar – 13 Apr 1975). All current and past pilgrims are invited to join us for lunch and reminiscences, together with a service of thanksgiving and prayers for deceased pilgrims. For those who wish to join, there will be a morning walk. Limited overnight “floor and breakfast” will be available the nights before and after the reunion. If you can’t make it, comment on this post to share a memory.
Venue
The reunion will be based at the St Philip Howard Centre, Southgate Drive, Crawley, RH10 6RP (formerly DABCEC). There is plentiful parking, and it’s on several bus routes (Southgate Avenue stops)
Walk
The morning walk will take us from Horsham Station to the Centre – we will leave the St Philip Howard Centre at 08:30 and walk to Crawley Station to catch to 08:57 train to Horsham, arriving 09:10. Pilgrims could optionally meet us at either station. If you can, please buy your ticket in advance to avoid delays!
Lunch
A buffet lunch will be served when the walking group has returned to the centre. Please ensure you advise us of any dietary requirements.
Schedule
Friday 4 April
19:00 onwards
Arrivals No food provided, but option to bring your own.
Saturday 5 April
07:00
Breakfast
08:30
Depart for station
08:57
Train to Horsham
09:10
Start walk at Horsham
11:00-11:30
Colgate, Prayers
13:00
Return, St Philip Howard Centre
13:30
Lunch
18:00
Close
Evening
Overnighters take away / pub dinner (not included)
Sunday 6 April
09:00
Depart
Cost
£10 for the lunch, £5 for each breakfast, or any donation you wish to add. Any surplus from the reunion will be donated to charity. Pay on the day. Please book in advance and let us know if plans change, so that we can avoid waste.
50 years ago a group of priests, looking to find a way for young people to celebrate the Holy Year of 1975 and the 10th anniversary of Arundel & Brighton Diocese, planned a walking pilgrimage “beating the bounds” of the Diocese. This became an annual event, the pilgrimage we know and love, going to diverse destinations across England and Wales, becoming Ecumenical, and with an evolving demographic. Over the years this institution has meant so much to the regulars, the “one-off” pilgrims, and people we’ve encountered on the way.
So 2025 will be a year of celebration for us, and we’d love to see old and new pilgrims at two events we are planning. So please SAVE THE DATES!
50-year Reunion in Crawley, 4-6 April 2025
Unlike its successors, the first pilgrimage took place after Easter (31st March – 13th April 1975) so we like to organise an “April Reunion” to mark the major anniversaries.
Whilst the exact schedule is yet to be worked out, the main activities will be on Saturday 5th April, probably involving a short morning walk, a pub lunch, and a social afternoon tea back at the venue, where non-walkers can join us and we can share reminiscences. We’ll have some form of thanksgiving service and remember deceased pilgrims.
Overnight pilgrim-style accommodation will be available for Friday and Saturday nights.
Please spread the word to any past pilgrims you know who might not otherwise hear about the reunion.
Jubilee Pilgrimage of Hope, 9-24 August 2025
As the distances involved in beating the bounds of the Diocese (even cutting more corners than we did in 1975) are beyond our regular mileages, after some thought we have derived a route that visits each of the 11 Deaneries (future “new parishes”) in the Arundel & Brighton Diocese:
Horley (Crawley Deanery)
Reigate (Redhill Deanery)
Epsom (Epsom Deanery)
Weybridge (Weybridge Deanery)
Frimley (Woking Deanery)
Farnham (Guildford Deanery)
Haslemere (Guildford Deanery)
Midhurst (Cathedral Deanery)
Tangmere (Cathedral Deanery)
Goring-by-Sea (Worthing Deanery)
Brighton (Brighton Deanery)
Seaford (Lewes Deanery)
Eastbourne (Eastbourne & St Leonards Deanery)
Note that some accommodation is not yet confirmed, so locations may change a little.
Whilst maintaining our strong ecumenical commitment and visiting churches of all denominations along our route, we hope to inspire people from the deaneries we walk through to join us as day pilgrims. We also hope that “past pilgrims” will join or meet us along the way; and of course new pilgrims are always welcome, whatever your location, background or creed!
Bookings for this pilgrimage will open in February, once the accommodation is finalised. To make sure you hear first, subscribe to updates on our website (https://thepilgrims.org.uk/ via the “Subscribe to Blog via Email” panel)
Having reviewed the successful conclusion of the Heart of England pilgrimage in August, September’s AGM looked forward to our plans for 2025, the 50th anniversary of the first Arundel and Brighton Diocesan Walking Pilgrimage.
Summer Pilgrimage
Our original aspiration had been to repeat 1975’s “beating the bounds” but that proved too long and after a series of iterations we adopted a proposal for a route which visits each of the Moderated Parishes in the A&B diocese. This proved something of a mathematical optimisation challenge, getting to all 11 parishes with our regular constraints of time and distance, but we have a viable route, one which includes a number of places never or rarely visited before by the pilgrims.
Our vision for 2025 is that people from the local communities will join us as day pilgrims in their own areas, for as far as they wish or feel able.
Although the route is based around our Catholic diocese, we have not forgotten our ecumenical credentials and, as we always do, we will be involving and visiting church communities of all denominations as we progress through Surrey and Sussex.
The proposed route (subject to finding suitable accommodation) is shown in the table below. Moderated parish names are shown in square brackets (see https://www.abdiocese.org.uk/diocese/pastoral-plan)
Date
From
To
Sat 9 Aug 25
Horley [Crawley]
Reigate
Sun 10 Aug 25
Reigate [Redhill]
Epsom
Mon 11 Aug 25
Epsom [Epsom]
Weybridge
Tue 12 Aug 25
Weybridge [Weybridge]
Frimley
Wed 13 Aug 25
Frimley [Woking]
Farnham
Thu 14 Aug 25
Rest Day
Farnham
Fri 15 Aug 25
Farnham [Guildford]
Haslemere
Sat 16 Aug 25
Haslemere [Guildford]
Petworth
Sun 17 Aug 25
Petworth [Cathedral]
Arundel
Mon 18 Aug 25
Arundel [Cathedral]
Worthing
Tue 19 Aug 25
Rest Day
Worthing
Wed 20 Aug 25
Worthing [Worthing]
Brighton
Thu 21 Aug 25
Brighton [Brighton & Hove]
Seaford
Fri 22 Aug 25
Seaford [Lewes]
Eastbourne
Sat 23 Aug 25
Celebration Day
Eastbourne
Sun 24 Aug 25
Eastbourne [Eastbourne & St Leonards]
Home
Proposed 2025 Pilgrimage Route
Any plan is a compromise, and we can’t visit every corner of the Diocese; the proposed route is half in Surrey and half in Sussex and includes the far north of the Diocese where we’ve rarely ventured before.
April Reunion
We also decided that there should be an extraordinary reunion (on a date around 31st March, the 50th anniversary of the start of our first pilgrimage). Just a placeholder at present – anyone who could host such a reunion please make contact!
Nobody had offered to organise a weekend reunion this year, so we were grateful that Anne Leggett stepped in and offered a day walk. So it was that 13 pilgrims in total gathered at her house for pre-walk refreshments on Saturday morning. It was raining when we set off but it soon cleared up and remained fine for the rest of the day.
Our route took us up Reigate Hill through the grounds of Gatton Park which are normally closed to the public but we had privileged access as Anne is a gardening volunteer. We knew that the pub we planned to stop in would be very busy so those not carrying their own food bought snacks at the Junction 8 Café on top of Reigate Hill and we sat on the benches there to eat, before proceeding on to the Sportsman at Mogador for drinks. On this walk we had no timetable to keep to so we were able to stop and explore according to whim and we had a very relaxing and enjoyable day. The walk back from Mogador took a similar but more direct route with Maurice leading some of the way. We noticed that Anne chooses narrower and trickier paths than Maurice, for example right along the edge of the North Downs escarpment.
After further refreshments in Anne’s house, the remaining 9 pilgrims concluded the day with dinner in one of Maurice’s favourite places, the Sun Inn, which is the Redhill branch of Wetherspoons. Thanks go to Anne and her brother Mike for their hospitality and Maurice for additional walk-leading expertise.
Anne Leggett invites you to this year’s pilgrimage reunion. It will consist of a day walk only (no overnight stay) starting from Anne’s house, 103 Ladbroke Rd Redhill, Surrey, RH1 1JT. This is 0.3mls North of Redhill railway station almost opposite St Joseph’s Catholic church at the highest point of Ladbroke Rd. Parking for the first 4 cars will be in the drive of the house, then others have permission to park in the St Joseph’s Church car park. Please gather at the house at 9.30am for a 10am prompt start (drink and biscuits will be provided).
Here is a map. The PW in the top right hand corner is St Joseph’s and number 103 is just before it on the other side of the road.
The morning walk will be through Gatton Park (normally only open to paying visitors, but Anne is a gardening volunteer authorised to take you through). Then across to Reigate Hill car park where there is a cafe and toilets.
If wanting a main meal, you must order it in advance from the above menu and if you want to eat in inside, book a table. We have not booked a table as a hefty booking fee is required for a table of more than 5 people. Groups of 5 or fewer pilgrims might want to book a table themselves.
Order food on the spot from the bar snack kiosk in the garden.
Eat own sandwiches on the benches outside the pub on the other side of the road.
The walk is expected to finish between 4pm and 5pm, after which pilgrims might want to attend the 5.30pm vigil mass in St Joseph’s.
If you plan to come to the reunion, please email Anne at reunion@thepilgrims.org.uk ASAP to let her know: (We need to know the numbers needed for Gatton Park access). We will put the pilgrims who have booked in touch with each other so they can organise car shares, lunch table reservations, perhaps plans for an evening meal, amongst themselves.
This year’s pilgrimage reunion will consist of a day walk only (no overnight stay). Details will follow later. For now we can announce that it will be based in Redhill. Pilgrims will be able to get to the start of the walk either by train or by car; free parking will be available. Hold the date of Saturday 19th October.
Our 2024 Pilgrimage, from Worcester via Coventry to Peterborough, will very soon be underway. Pilgrims across the world have started their journeys to Worcester ready for our start on Saturday afternoon.
If you are one of those pilgrims, welcome aboard. You may like to pass on the details below to family or friends.
If not, and you’re close to our route, you’re welcome to join us as a “day pilgrim”, walking a full day or a few yards with us, or maybe just meeting us for prayer at one of our church stops.
If you’re not able to join us this year, you can join as an “e-pilgrim”, following our progress on our web diary. Please pray for us as we will for you as we journey along.
The web diary is now live at www.thepilgrims.org.uk/2024 – for now it has our plans, to be updated with words and picture as we go along.
All are welcome to join the pilgrimage and experience walking as part of our travelling Christian community, whether for a fortnight or just an afternoon! The cost is £350 to walk with us all the way, or £33 per night to book a shorter spell (£31 per night for 7 days or more, 25% discount for under 21s).
It has taken a while, but the Catholic dioceses of England and Wales are finally catching up with what we started in Arundel and Brighton back in 1975! . The Hearts in Search of God pilgrim ways project has been set up to promote walking pilgrimages in all the dioceses. The person in charge of this project is Phil McCarthy who walked with us on the first 2 days of our pilgrimage from Bristol to Arundel this year. He is developing a pilgrimage route in every diocese.
His route in Arundel and Brighton goes from Arundel Cathedral to the shrine of Our Lady of Consolation at West Grinstead (very similar to the “Mercy Pilgrimage” route we did in May 2016). The route is called the “Way of Our Lady of Consolation” and is ready for anybody to walk it as a self-guided 2 day pilgrimage. There is a gpx file to download. Its web page is here: https://www.pilgrimways.org.uk/arundelandbrighton. Do look at that page and browse the rest of that website to find out more, for example did you know that 2025 is Holy Year with the theme, chosen by Pope Francis, of “Pilgrims of Hope”?
As usual, conversations on where to go in 2024 began while the A&B pilgrims were walking the 2023 route from Bristol to Arundel. A wide variety of starting points and destinations were proposed, and the final decision was made at the AGM in September. First we voted on which area of the country to go to and then we voted on the suggested routes within that area, and as you may have already spotted on the “Our 2024 Pilgrimage” section on the front page of our website, the route that was chosen was Worcester to Peterborough.
This route takes in 3 cathedrals that our pilgrimage has not visited before: Worcester, Coventry and Peterborough. Committee member Bruce had proposed this route in the first place and had provided an outline list of places which chief route planner Aidan has tweaked slightly. The first rest day will be either Warwick after 3 walking days or Coventry after 4 walking days; the hall research that we do in Warwick and Coventry will influence this decision. The second rest day will be in Market Harborough. After Market Harborough we plan to loop round the top of Rutland Water on the way to Peterborough. More details to follow in later posts.
The dates of the 2024 pilgrimage are Saturday 10th to Sunday 25th August 2024, and we look forward to welcoming both first-time and returning pilgrims. Bookings will open early in the new year.
PILGRIMAGE OFFICERS
I always thought pilgrimage coordinators are like the actors who play the Doctor in Doctor Who. Every couple of years, the face changes, but there is continuity from all that has gone before. The phrase “On the shoulders of giants” comes to mind. The same face has never come back for a second stint … until this year. David Tennant is to return as the Doctor later this month (for 3 episodes only), and I find myself back as pilgrimage coordinator, having previously held the role for the 2013 and 2014 pilgrimages. How did this come about? Students of pilgrimage history will know that ever since the “Pasta Pot Declaration” of 1991, we have had a 4-year coordinator cycle in place. In this cycle, each coordinator spends one year as deputy coordinator followed by two years as coordinator then a further year as deputy coordinator. If the cycle had continued as normal then a new deputy coordinator would have been elected at the AGM in September 2022, and would have been learning the ropes for the last 12 months which were David Fletcher’s second and final year as coordinator. However no such person was found, and so as we walked the 2023 pilgrimage we knew we had no coordinator lined up to take over for 2024. Reasoning that no previous coordinator would want to make a second four year commitment, I had the idea that previous coordinators might take the role again for one year only; for instance, myself. So we came up with a two-year plan: I would return as Coordinator for 2024 only and then Aidan Simons will return for 2025 only, which will be our big 50th anniversary year.
For 2024, Aidan replaces me as Chief Route Planner. We also have a new treasurer. Nick Lamb has stepped down, having served in this role since 2013 when he replaced Patrick. The new treasurer is our outgoing coordinator David Fletcher. Nick remains as a valued committee member and we are of course extremely thankful for his service over this time. We are cooperating more closely with the A&B diocese these day on finances, publicity and other matters. Indeed, the diocesan Chief Operating Officer, Sarah Kilmartin, has walked with us in recent years and is now on our committee.
HALL BOOKING
For 2024, we have 4 hall booking teams or individuals working in parallel on different parts of the route. Some halls have already been booked. As a legacy of Covid, we now estimate the space required for all the pilgrims more rigorously, with guidelines for the number of square metres required per pilgrim. Previously it was a case of “look at the space and imagine all the pilgrim beds laid out”, although that is still necessary too, since a mathematical formula can’t cope with every possible hall layout. e.g. the main space of one of the halls already identified for 2024 is circular which is blowing our minds.
2023 PILGRIMAGE REPORT
Hopefully, you have all seen the “Pilgrims Live” web diary https://www.thepilgrims.org.uk/2023. We have added further words and photos since the end of the pilgrimage.
David has written some words to summarise the pilgrimage on our past pilgrimages web page (click on “The Bristol to Arundel Pilgrimage, 2023” at the bottom of the page).
I thank David profusely for his two years as coordinator, in which he steered us successfully through uncharted waters as the world emerged from the pandemic, while modernising some of our procedures e.g. introducing electronic payments.
THE PILGRIMAGE EQUIPMENT
The pilgrimage equipment (pots, pans, urn, toaster, utensils, boxes etc) will be on the move in January! For many years our legendary cook Frances Dean kept it in her garage, then after a brief spell in Patrick’s parents’ shed, the equipment moved to Sue and Fred’s shed in Surrey and has remained there ever since. We are grateful to Sue and Fred for looking after it all this time. This has not just been a passive exercise of leaving it in the shed but has involved a big investment in their time, keeping all the equipment clean, and indeed keeping the shed as weatherproof as possible. As another sign of our increased cooperation with the diocese, the new home for the pilgrimage equipment will be the coach house of the bishop’s residence in Pease Pottage near Crawley.
Meanwhile we have identified that some of the equipment never gets used. Here is a picture of these items:
If you can provide a new home for any of these items yourself, or you can suggest organisations who might want to take them off our hands, for free, please let us know. Or could you sell them for us on eBay? Otherwise they will be off to, for example, metal recycling which seems a shame.
John Chenery, Coordinator for the 2024 pilgrimage.
Diocese of Arundel & Brighton Ecumenical Walking Pilgrimage
