Christianity sacred sites in England, United Kingdom

All Saints, Blackheath

London, England, United Kingdom

All Saints' Blackheath stands at the threshold between London and the open road south....

All Saints' Church, Boughton Aluph

Boughton Aluph, England, United Kingdom

All Saints' Church stands directly on the Pilgrim's Way in the Kent village of Boughton Aluph, where it has sheltered travellers bound for Canterbury since the 12th...

Archbishop's Palace, Charing

Charing, England, United Kingdom

On the edge of Charing village stands a great medieval hall that once housed the Archbishops of Canterbury on their journeys between London and Canterbury....

Beverley Minster

Beverley, England, United Kingdom

Rising from the market town of Beverley in East Yorkshire, this Gothic minster has witnessed over 1,300 years of continuous worship since St John of Beverley founded a...

Boxley Abbey

Boxley, England, United Kingdom

Boxley Abbey was a Cistercian house on the Pilgrim's Way that housed the Rood of Grace, a life-size articulated crucifix believed by medieval pilgrims to move its eyes and...

Bride's Mound

Glastonbury, England, United Kingdom

Behind an industrial estate on Glastonbury's western edge, a small mound rises from a field. Few visitors find it....

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury, England, United Kingdom

Canterbury Cathedral stands at the end of the Pilgrim's Way as the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the site of Thomas Becket's martyrdom in 1170....

Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag, Knaresborough, England

Knaresborough, England, United Kingdom

Hewn from sandstone cliffs above the River Nidd in 1408, the Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag stands as one of Britain's oldest wayside shrines....

Chilham

Chilham, England, United Kingdom

St Mary's, Chilham, is an active Church of England parish church on the Pilgrims' Way, its congregation traditionally dated to the 7th century and documented in the...

Christ Church Gate

Part of Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury, England, United Kingdom

Christ Church Gate is the ceremonial entrance to Canterbury Cathedral precincts and the final threshold of the Pilgrim's Way from Winchester....

Christ Church, Shooters Hill

London, England, United Kingdom

Perched near the summit of the highest point in the London Borough of Greenwich, Christ Church stands on the ancient Watling Street — the Roman road that carried medieval...

Church of St Frideswide, Oxford, England

Oxford, England, United Kingdom

In the Latin Chapel of Christ Church Cathedral, fragments of stone reassembled after 400 years form the reconstructed shrine of St Frideswide, the woman who founded...

Church of St Martha-on-the-Hill

Chilworth, England, United Kingdom

St Martha-on-the-Hill is an active Anglican church at the summit of a 574-foot Surrey hilltop, standing where pilgrims have paused since the Norman era. Foot access only....

Church of St. Mary and St. Edwin, Evesham, England

Wychavon, England, United Kingdom

In the center of Evesham, a Gothic Revival church carries forward a devotion that Henry VIII tried to end....

Church of St. Mary’s

Cotswold District, England, United Kingdom

In a quiet Cotswold valley, a medieval church carries the mark of the Knights Templar....

Church of the Holy Rood, Holybourne

Holybourne, England, United Kingdom

The Church of the Holy Rood stands beside the spring that gave Holybourne its name — haligburna, Old English for sacred stream....

Durham Cathedral

Durham, England, United Kingdom

For 120 years, monks fleeing Vikings carried the body of St. Cuthbert across northern England....

Eastbridge Hospital of St Thomas the Martyr

Canterbury, England, United Kingdom

Eastbridge Hospital has stood on Canterbury's High Street since around 1180, built to receive exhausted pilgrims arriving to venerate Thomas Becket....

Ely Cathedral

Ely, England, United Kingdom

Rising from the flat fenlands of East Anglia like a ship on a calm sea, Ely Cathedral has anchored worship on this site since the 7th century....

Exeter Cathedral

Exeter, England, United Kingdom

Rising from foundations that have witnessed Roman soldiers, Saxon monks, and Norman bishops, Exeter Cathedral holds the longest uninterrupted medieval vaulted ceiling in...

Farnham Castle

Farnham, England, United Kingdom

Farnham grew up around a castle built in 1138 by Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, and the parish church of St Andrew, whose worship continues unbroken from at least...

Glastonbury Abbey

Glastonbury, England, United Kingdom

Glastonbury Abbey was once the second richest monastery in England, claiming to be the oldest Christian foundation in Britain....

Gloucester Cathedral

Gloucester, England, United Kingdom

When King Edward II was murdered at Berkeley Castle in 1327, other abbeys refused his body....

Lenham Cross

Lenham, England, United Kingdom

Lenham Cross is a 200-foot Latin cross carved in compacted chalk on the south-facing scarp of the North Downs....

Lesnes Abbey

London, England, United Kingdom

Lesnes Abbey stands in southeast London as a ruin built from guilt. Founded in 1178 by Richard de Luci — the man whose loyalty to Henry II helped trigger the murder of...

Lindisfarne

Holy Island, England, United Kingdom

A tidal island off the Northumberland coast, Lindisfarne has drawn pilgrims for nearly fourteen centuries....

New Alresford

New Alresford, England, United Kingdom

New Alresford is a planned medieval market town founded around 1200 by the Bishops of Winchester, its Grade II*-listed Soke Bridge still carrying the old Winchester-London...

Otford

Otford, England, United Kingdom

For nearly six hundred years, Otford's moated manor and later Tudor palace served as a residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, standing directly on the Pilgrims' Way...

Our Lady and St. Annes Church

Reading, England, United Kingdom

In 1896, Bishop Edward Ilsley established a Catholic parish in Caversham with 13 people at its first Mass....

Our Lady of Caversham

Inside Our Lady and St. Annes Church

Reading, England, United Kingdom

For over 500 years, pilgrims traveled along the Thames to pray before Our Lady of Caversham, England's second most important Marian shrine after Walsingham....

Our Lady of Walsingham

North Norfolk, England, United Kingdom

Walsingham, a small Norfolk village, has been England's principal Marian pilgrimage site since 1061, when the noblewoman Richeldis de Faverches was said to have been led...

Reigate

Reigate, England, United Kingdom

In the thirteenth century, Reigate's High Street held a chapel dedicated to Thomas Becket and an adjoining hospice for travelers making their way toward his shrine at...

Rochester Cathedral

Rochester, England, United Kingdom

Rochester Cathedral has stood at the Medway crossing since AD 604, making it one of the oldest sites of continuous Christian worship in England....

Roman Baths of Bath (Temple of Sulis Minerva)

Bath, England, United Kingdom

At Bath, Britain's only natural hot springs bubble up from deep within the earth at 46 degrees Celsius, as they have for millennia....

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury, England, United Kingdom

Salisbury Cathedral lifts Britain's tallest spire 404 feet toward heaven, a medieval achievement that still commands the Wiltshire landscape....

Sherborne Abbey

Sherborne, England, United Kingdom

Sherborne Abbey has witnessed Christian worship since 705 CE, when St Aldhelm established his cathedral in the heart of Wessex....

Southwark Cathedral

London, England, United Kingdom

Southwark Cathedral stands at London's oldest river crossing as the official starting point of the Becket Way — the 90-mile pilgrimage to Canterbury Thomas Becket himself...

St Augustine's Abbey

Canterbury, England, United Kingdom

Founded in 598 CE by Augustine of Canterbury on land granted by the Kentish king, this ruined Benedictine abbey is the birthplace of organised Christianity in Anglo-Saxon...

St Barnabas Church, Ranmore

Ranmore Common, England, United Kingdom

St Barnabas Church stands at 700 feet on Ranmore Common, its Victorian spire rising above Surrey woodland on the North Downs ridge followed by medieval pilgrims to...

St Bartholomew's Church, Otford

Otford, England, United Kingdom

St Bartholomew's stands at the heart of Otford village, where the Winchester and London arms of the Pilgrim's Way converge....

St Bartholomew's Church, Winchester

Winchester, England, United Kingdom

St Bartholomew's is the sole surviving structure of Hyde Abbey, the Benedictine monastery where King Alfred the Great was buried in 1110....

St Botolph's Church, Chevening

Chevening, England, United Kingdom

St Botolph's stands on the North Downs ridge where the Pilgrim's Way has wound since before Christianity....

St Catherine's Hill and Chapel

Guildford, England, United Kingdom

St Catherine's Hill rises from the Surrey sandstone above Guildford, its roofless 14th-century chapel marking the Pilgrim's Way south of the River Wey....

St Christopher's Chapel, Boughton Lees

Boughton Lees, England, United Kingdom

St Christopher's Chapel stands on the Pilgrims' Way in the Kent village of Boughton Lees — a converted medieval hall house dedicated to the patron saint of travellers....

St Dunstan's Church, Canterbury

Canterbury, England, United Kingdom

St Dunstan's stands just outside Canterbury's medieval West Gate — the last church a pilgrim passed before entering the city....

St Edith's Well, Kemsing

Kemsing, England, United Kingdom

At a quiet junction in Kemsing village stands a small, grilled well traditionally identified as the birthplace of Saint Edith of Wilton, born here around 961....

St George the Martyr Church, Borough

London, England, United Kingdom

Standing at the exact junction where medieval London gave way to the road to Canterbury, St George the Martyr has served as a gateway church for nine centuries....

St James's Church, Shere

Shere, England, United Kingdom

St James's Church in Shere is a Norman and Early English parish church on the ancient Pilgrim's Way through the Surrey Hills....