A Pilgrimage from Norwich to Walsingham

Sharon Sewell • April 28, 2025

Sharon Sewell walked from Norwich Anglican Cathedral to Walsingham along the Walsingham Way. This is her story.

Norwich to Drayton

I began my pilgrimage by collecting my way marker that can be found in the Cathedral Shop, which opens at 9am. From there, I made my way to the Marriott's Way. The directions were confusing as way markers were fairly sparce. I think I found two (and another which had been partially picked off the post by some bright spark). However, if you go through the arch in front of the Cathedral and walk to the right, crossing the road and continuing down Wensum Street, passing over the bridge, you will eventually come to a road sign Colgate, where you take a left. Continue along Colgate, turning right at Duke Street. Walk Down Duke Street until you come to a crossroads and take a left onto St Mary Plain. When you come to a T junction, turn right onto Oak Street and then left onto New Mills Yard. You then come to Riverside Walk, where you bear right onto a pleasant walk alongside the river. You then cross the main road and take a left beside the roundabout. This leads you to Marriott's Way.

Marriot's Way runs along an old railway line. Many people use it as a means of walking or cycling to Drayton. I found that it was used by cyclists, families and dog walkers and felt quite safe. The beginning of the way was more industrial, with housing and an industrial site on its sidelines. These then petered out into the countryside, leaving the city behind. There are opportunities to take a woodland walk to the right, which brings you back onto the Marriot way. Later, a nature reserve can be visited on the left. At Drayton, The Red Lion Public House is close by for refreshments as are several shops. Beyond the Red Lion is St Margaret's Church.

Drayton to Ringland

From St Margaret's church, head back, past the Red Lion and cross the Fakenham road. Head up the hill at Taverham Road and there will be a Walsingham Way sign pointing to the right. This is also signed the Walsingham cycle route. Once again, you are following an old railway line. There are now fewer people but it feels safe and there are regular signs along the way. You travel for quite some time, through Thorpe Marriott and cross a bridge over the busy A1270 where you bear left. At a roundabout you will find a WW signpost instructing you to go straight ahead, parallel with the A1270. I began to think I had taken a wrong turn when I saw a closed gate ahead of me. However, once reaching the gate there is a WW sign that guides you into the woods where you head to the top of a hill. Here, the noise of the traffic lessens, and it is peaceful with shaded woods.

Coming down out of the woods, you cross the fairly busy Fakenham road and go straight onto a farm track. At the farm there is a private sign on the right, go left and look to your right where you will see a gate with a ww sign on it. This leads you across a pretty water meadow and to a wooden bridge where you cross over the River Wensum. Once across the field, walk along The Street towards Ringland. You will come to a fork in the road; remain on the right and you will enter Ringland. Once on the T junction with the main road in Ringland, a short detour to the left will take you to St Peter's church. To the right will allow you to continue along Ringland Lane which leads into Morton Lane. Continue through Easthaugh and onwards. On reaching Rectory Road, I took a detour towards Lyng, where St Margaret's Church can be found. Next to the Church is The Fox, where refreshment can be had. It has a garden which overlooks the church. Returning to Easthaugh Road, take a right and continue down the road. you will come to a T junction. Cross the road and follow the track through cool woods and then a pathway that ends on Heath Road where a left will take you Elsing. St Mary Church can be found at the end of Church Road.

I stayed at Bartles Lodge for the night. It is quiet and serves cooked breakfast. Dinner can be booked ahead, and you are welcome to take any items left on the buffet breakfast as pack up for the journey. I spent some time in contemplation, walking around the three fishing lakes on the grounds. Alternatively, I have since found that it is possible to sleep in the village hall, by arrangement. A waymark stamp is available at the church by arrangement with the Church Warden. This part of the walk, with a few detours registered at 29.63 km or 18.5 miles.

Elsing to Great Ryburgh

With your back to the Church, turn left and walk down Church Street, leading on to Elsing Road. Stay to the right at the triangle and continue on Elsing Road until you reach Swanton Morley, where you can find Darbys Pub for refreshment and Swanton Morley Stores for supplies. The B1147 is a busy road. All Saint's Church can be found by staying on the path opposite Darbys Pub and following the B1147 through the village. As you come out of the village, you will see All Saints Church on a small hill to the right. The church has a lot of information about the soldiers from Swanton Morely that died during World War 1. To continue your way, return to the path and cross the road to walk up Rectory Road, which faces you. This leads into Hannah Road and will take you out of the village. As you exit the village take a right up Primrose Lane, which leads you into the wide countryside. On a right-hand bend, where Primrose Lane becomes Primrose Hill, you will be guided onto a countryside track, which leads you across the fields and, eventually to Worthing Road. Take a right here. If you are wanting a rest, continue past the WW sign guiding you to the right and after a few metres, just around the corner, you will come to Swanton Morely Waterfalls. There is a small picnic field by the waterfalls that is open to the public,

If you visit the waterfalls, return to the WW sign you passed, that guides you along Worthing Road. This is quite a long road but is peaceful. After quite some time, you have the choice of taking a detour up Church Road to St Margaret Church Worthing, in which case you will need to return to this point or take the right bend and walk along the Worthing Road, which will lead you to a T junction with the B1145. If you follow this going left, it will lead you into North Elmham. In North Elmham there are places to eat and buy supplies. Take a right after the King's Head Hotel and you will pass North Elmham Stores and Elmham Tea Post, eventually coming to St Mary's Church. North Elmham Chapel is also worth a visit. Exiting North Elmham, there is the entrance to a gated path, next to a red telephone box. Further down the path you are guided across a field and back into the country. The exit gate leads to Great Heath Road where you bear right and then take the next left. This road is quiet When you reach a three-way junction, stay to the right and you will eventually join Mill Road, which will lead you into Great Ryburgh. The Blue Boar is no longer open, however, there is pilgrim accommodation next to St Andrews Church.

I stayed in the pilgrim accommodation and was warmly met with tea and cake by Anne, the Church Warden. Anne could not have been more generous, making sure I was fed and watered. There are cooking facilities and somewhere to wash. I thought I would be sleeping on the floor, but a camp bed was provided. The village hall is also made available, by arrangement, for larger groups. It is possible to get a waymark stamp from the church as it is made available in the church. Whilst collecting the waymark stamp, it is worth setting some time aside to look around St Andrews church which has a display regarding the meaning of being a pilgrim, soldiers from the village that gave up their lives in World War 1 and the architectural history of the church. This part of the walk registered at 19.69 km or 12.3 miles long,

Great Ryburgh to Walsingham.

Ryburgh is left via Bridge Road. Leave the church and turn right immediately before the Blue Boar. I took a detour at the next left signposted 'cemetery'. At the top of the hill, there are the remains of Little Ryburgh medieval parish church, which was used until the mid-1700s. Each Easter Sunday morning, a service is still held around the angel. Returning back to the route, take a left, along Bridge Road and this will eventually go over the A1067. Almost opposite and to the left, you are guided to a quieter road. As you corner to the left there is a right of way, the other side of the hedge (apparently many people miss this). On exiting the right of way, you enter Stibbard. At Stibbard is All Saints church. Continue with All Saints church to you right for some time. You will reach Pedlar's lane on the right. Take a left here on a track that will lead you through vast, open fields. The track ends with a rather large house in front of you. A few meters to the left are the ruins of an old church, taken over by nature. It is to the right that the route continues until a road is reached. This road and the WW way markers guide you through Croxton into Little Snoring, where you will find Saint Andrews Church with its round tower which is mainly 11th Century and is separate from the church. The church was enclosed in the perimeter of the air base during World War 2 and was used as the base chapel.

Return to the road from Saint Andrews Church and continue along Little Snoring Road. You will eventually cross over the river Stiffkey. Continue along the road and go straight over at the crossroads into The Street at Great Snoring. The Church of st Mary the Virgin will be passed on the left . Continue along The Street and take a left onto Barsham Road. You will the be guided onto a right of way on the right, next to a footpath which will continue on to the Fakenham Road. The Fakenham Road can be quite busy and another right of way, behind the hedge allows safe passage along Fakenham Road. At the time of writing, the passage was becoming overgrown but was passable, bringing you out further along the Fakenham Road. Just before some private ruins is Blind Dick's Lane on the left. This lane is quieter than the main road. A right turn will then take you along Back Lane and into Walsingham. This part of the walk registered at 19.18 km or 12 miles.

Sharon Sewell

NB Sharon walked the Walsingham Way. The Hearts in Search of God route from Norwich to Walsingham can be found here: The Way of the Annunciation

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Another Day in Paradise, but "Why are we walking?"

By Eddie Gilmore • July 21, 2025

I was in the north of Italy recently on the Via Francigena, the ancient pilgrimage path to Rome that begins in Canterbury. My wife, Yim Soon and I were with a group from L’Arche in France who are walking to Assisi in one-week sections. It was the second day, we were going up an interminably steep hill, it was hot, and we had ‘slept’ the night before on a floor, and with that motley group of twenty-five sharing two toilets (one of which had a door with no lock!). Yim Soon turned to me and asked, “Why are we walking?” The pair of us had done a lot of walking up until that point, and we had a lot of hiking still to come, so that was a very reasonable question to ask. One immediate answer was that we had the unexpected gift of time. I had moved to Ireland at the end of 2023 to take up a new job but things hadn’t worked out and I left in August 2024. We’d let out our house in the UK until June 2025 so Yim Soon had said to me, “Let’s walk!” I’d immediately agreed and our plans quickly took shape. We would do the Camino in Spain in October, the Lycian Way along the Turkish coast in February and March; then in April and May, we would follow the Way of Francis to Assisi and Rome. We also had an invitation to spend the winter with an old friend of Yim Soon from Korea who was now living with her family near Atlanta. This would include spending Christmas at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, the Trappist monastery of Thomas Merton that I’d always dreamed of visiting. There is a pleasing simplicity to life on the road. You scrunch your sleeping bag and the rest of your stuff into a rucksack in the morning and you walk. That's it! A lot of the usual worries of life seem to drop away and the biggest anxiety becomes making sure you don't get lost! Or where the next café con leche is going to come from! There's just something calming and centring about the age-old act of putting one foot in front of the other. There is also something about it that brings people together and draws out their story. And what incredible people we met on our various walks, and what wonderful stories we heard. And how we laughed with one another. The beautiful scenery is therapeutic too. In Turkey we were treated to one amazing view after another as we paced up and down the mountains that fringe the Mediterranean. In Italy we passed each day through yet another stunning medieval fortified hilltop town. And since we were doing all 500 miles of the Camino Francés, we would see the stark changes in landscape as we crossed the north of Spain: from the Pyrenees and the mountains near Pamplona, through the flat, arid meseta, then into the verdant hills of Galicia as we neared Santiago. There is a heightened awareness of the natural world: the sunrises, the sunsets, little wild flowers that appear as if out of nowhere. Food is deeply appreciated and I don't think that a meal at a Michelin restaurant could have satisfied me as much as the bread, cheese, tomato and cucumber I ate one day on a beach in Turkey, which we'd reached by a rocky and slightly hair-raising trek down a mountain. On the Camino I developed the art of the second, or even third breakfast. We had earned it! I also loved the shared international meals, and there’s one that particularly stands out. I’d been looking forward to returning to the municipal albergue (pilgrim hostel) at a town called Nájera because of what had happened there nine years before when I’d been doing that same walk. I’d got in with a group of Koreans, partly on account of having a Korean wife, and they’d prepared a banquet and invited myself and my Australian friend James to join them. We’d also got in with the Italians and they wanted to feed us as well. Then a Spanish guy Gerado offered us food. We could have eaten three meals that evening, and I was determined that on this next visit it would be me doing the cooking for some of the lovely people we’d met on the way. I got to work in the kitchen, with a little help from my international friends, and a large group of us sat and shared a feast. There were people from different countries and continents and speaking different languages; there were twenty-year-olds who seemed happy to hang out with those of us who were three times their age; and there was a range of backgrounds and beliefs and reasons for walking. It was utterly joyous. And after we’d eaten I picked up a guitar and started the singing, and various members of the group took a turn, and we were joined by others in that very diverse dining-room. The first song I did was one I’d written after that first Camino in 2015 and I told the story of how it had been inspired. James and I had been sitting on a bench outside the albergue in the early morning, waiting for the water to boil for our tea. The sun was just starting to rise above the trees and there was the sound of rushing water from the river, as well as the first birdsong. We were sitting there in companionable silence and then James said, “Another day in paradise.” Those words became the title of a book about pilgrimage which I wrote years later. They are also the first line of the chorus of my song ‘El Camino’ which I sang in that same albergue in Nájera in October, 2024. And I was so touched when one of the young people in our group, Lucy from Croatia, remarked at the end, “Wouldn’t it be cool if one of us came back here in nine years’ time and cooked for the other pilgrims and kept this story going!” Why do we walk? Well, yes, it’s the food, the fellowship, the fun, the breathtaking scenery, the little daily miracles and random acts of kindness, and the opportunity to live a bit more simply and to discover that we can be very content with very little. But it’s also, as my friend James observed one morning when sitting with me on a bench outside a pilgrim hostel in Spain, an opportunity to give thanks for another day in paradise. Eddie Gilmore is a Hearts in Search of God project collaborator. For more about Eddie and his books click here .

Become a Pilgrim of Hope for a Day!

By Phil McCarthy • July 20, 2025

Registration for Day Pilgrims is now open. On some days there are new shorter sections. Registration will close on 21st August 2025, so REGISTER NOW to avoid disappointment! The theme of the 2025 Jubilee is ‘pilgrims of hope’ and this has inspired a national walking pilgrimage with four main Ways converging at the Cathedral of St Barnabas, Nottingham, on Saturday 13th September 2025, for shared prayer and celebration. The four main Ways, named after the Evangelists, SS Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, start at the Catholic cathedrals in Cardiff, Leeds, Norwich and London, and will bless our nations with a Sign of the Cross and with the Gospels. The routes use established hiking routes and are off road as much as possible. A small group of 4-6 'perpetual pilgrims' will walk the full distance of each Way, and up to 20 day pilgrims will be able to register to join for stages. On some days there are opportunities for shorter walks.

The Pilgrimage of Hope is open for day pilgrims to register!

By Phil McCarthy • June 5, 2025

Registration for day pilgrims to join the 2025 National Walking Pilgrimage of Hope is now open! The Pilgrimage of Hope is a national walking pilgrimage with four main Ways converging at the Cathedral of St Barnabas, Nottingham, on Saturday 13th September 2025, for shared prayer and celebration. The four main Ways start at the Catholic cathedrals in Cardiff, Leeds, Norwich and Southwark, London, and will bless our nations with a Sign of the Cross and with the Gospels. The routes are named after the Evangelists and use established hiking routes and are off road as much as possible. A small group of 4-6 'perpetual pilgrims' will walk the full distance of each Way, and up to 20 day pilgrims will be able to join for day stages. Stretches which are suitable for wheelchairs and buggies have been be identified. There will be opportunities for non-walkers to provide enroute support, hospitality and prayer. There are possible feeder routes to the four main Ways from all the other Catholic cathedrals of England & Wales for keen long-distance walkers, so people from every diocese can organise their own pilgrimages. More information and registration Information about how to support the Pilgrimage with prayer and hospitality and how to register to walk stages as day pilgrims can be found here . Wishing you every blessing and joy during this Jubilee year, as we strive to become ‘pilgrims of hope’. I hope to meet many of you in Nottingham on 13th September. Buen camino! Phil McCarthy, Project Lead

Walking in the steps of London's saints

By Colette Joyce /ICN • June 4, 2025

A group of 25 pilgrims gathered at the English Martyrs Church by Tower Hill last Thursday morning, Feast of the Ascension, to take part in the Westminster Way Jubilee Year Pilgrimage, led by Westminster Diocese Justice and Peace Co-Ordinator Colette Joyce. At each station we prayed and reflected on saints connected to London and the inspiration they continue to be for us today: St John Houghton and the Carthusian Martyrs of the Reformation, the missionary St Augustine of Canterbury, St Anne Line who sheltered priests and held secret Masses in her home during the Elizabethan persecution, St Erconwald, St Ethelburga and St Etheldreda. We remembered the scholars of the 7th century who brought learning and education to both men and women, and St John Henry Newman whose own spiritual journey of conversion and prophetic sense of the nature of the Church had a profound influence on the 20th century leading up to the Second Vatican Council. From the church we walked past the Tower of London, where so many Catholic martyrs met their fate during the Reformation, stopping to pray at the site of the scaffold where St John Fisher and St Thomas More were executed. Our next stop was Mary Moorfields, the only Catholic Church in the City of London. From here we walked to the Charterhouse, once a Carthusian priory and home to the first martyrs of the Reformation. The Prior, St John Houghton and Companions were hung and quartered for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy. Watching from his cell window, St Thomas More witnessed the monks being dragged on hurdles from the Tower of London on 4 May 1535. He is said to have admired their courage and faith as they went to their deaths, viewing them as "Cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms going to their marriage." From here we walked to St Etheldreda's, Ely Place, one of the oldest Catholic churches in London. Built around 1250 as the town chapel for the bishops of Ely. After the Reformation It had several owners . For a a time it was used by the Spanish ambassador as a private chapel. During Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, it was used as a prison and a hospital. The Rosminians bought St Etheldreda's in 1874 and have restored it beautifully. As we were walking during Laudato Si' Week, pilgrim leader Colette Joyce invited pilgrims to reflect on the flora and fauna of London on our way. London is a surprisingly green city, blessed with around twenty percent tree coverage - which makes it technically a forest! We are especially grateful to the Victorians who planted the ubiquitous London Plane trees which can be found in streets and parks all over the city, while there are more than 400 other species of tree to discover. "The entire material universe speaks of God's love, his boundless affection for us. Soil, water, mountains: everything is, as it were, a caress of God… contemplation of creation allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us." (Laudato Si', 84-85) After a stop at Corpus Christi Church in Covent Garden - where former parish priest Fr Francis Stanfield wrote Sweet Sacrament Divine and Mgr Ronald Knox preached his famous homilies on the Blessed Sacrament - we made our way down the Strand, past Traflagar Square, through Whitehall, down to Westminster Cathedral. On our arrival, we weary walkers were greeted by the Cathedral Dean, Fr Slawomir Witoń. We ended our pilgrimage with prayers in the Martyrs Chapel and a reflection from Fr Slawomir on the life and witness of St John Southworth, patron saint of clergy in the Diocese of Westminster. The pilgrims received the final stamp in their Pilgrim Passports and a blessing before returning home. Colette Joyce, Westminster Diocese Justice and Peace Co-Ordinator Read more about the Westminster Way: https://westminsterjusticeandpeace.org/2025/06/02/walking-the-westminster-way/ This article was first published on Independent Catholic News: Independent Catholic News Image: Pilgrims at Westminster Cathedral (Archdiocese of Westminster)

The Psychology of Pilgrimage

By Phil McCarthy • June 3, 2025

In this podcast I discuss the psychology of pilgrimage, especially as it relates to visiting First World War battlefields and cemeteries.

Walking the St Wulstan Way

By Peter Chisholm • May 31, 2025

Pilgrims joined Fr Gerry Walsh tracing St Wulstan’s life and legacy, from Worcester Cathedral to Clifton Cathedral as part of the Catholic Church’s Year of Jubilee, “Pilgrims of Hope” celebrations. Participants explored their faith while journeying through stunning landscapes and historic locations.