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We advance British pilgrimage as a form of cultural heritage that promotes holistic wellbeing, for the public benefit
‘Holistic wellbeing’ includes physical, mental, emotional, social, community, environmental and spiritual health, and we aim to make these benefits accessible to wide new audiences.
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We are a registered charity formed in 2014 that aims to promote pilgrimage in Britain by helping to develop and publicise new and old paths as well as the practice of pilgrimage itself by suggesting people say ‘bring your own beliefs’.
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We offer a unique network of hundreds of pilgrim routes and places of pilgrimage.
Our achievements so far in numbers
At the time we formed our charity, few people were talking about pilgrimage in Britain.
We started gathering pilgrimage routes across Britain and re-opening the concept in new ways to new audiences, both through the press and off-line communities along the routes. Since then we have:
We have led 2000+ pilgrims on 100 guided pilgrimages since 2016
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Built a strong social media community of 60,000 followers
We now promote 250+ walking routes and 50+ operational Sanctuaries
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Meet the team behind your journeys
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Dr. Guy Hayward
Director & Co-Founder
Guy co-founded the British Pilgrimage Trust, after completing a PhD at Cambridge on how singing forms community. Guy also runs the website choralevensong.org and is one half of musical comedy duo Bounder & Cad.
Dawn Champion
Head of Community Engagement
Dawn has had a career with English Heritage, working on several award-winning projects at some of the most significant places across the South East, before moving to Kent Wildlife Trust to lead delivery of the volunteering and visitor experience programmes. She also volunteers for charities that connect children with the magic of nature.
Simon Guild
Chair of Trustees
Simon has 15 years’ experience as a non-executive director helping founders build online businesses. These include Babbel, a language learning business, 8Fit, an online fitness company, Spreadshirt, which customises apparel, Picfair, a photographer platform & Get Licensed, a security training business. He has been a trustee of Blood Cancer UK for 8 years and a fellow of the RSA for 20 years and was previously CEO of MTV Networks Europe. He is currently engaged in a pilgrimage connecting the greatest cathedrals of Britain.
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Abigail Rowe
Trustee
Abigail works professionally with three charities, primarily in a fundraising capacity. She is currently walking the bounds of England, in a bid to keep learning more about our amazing heritage.
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William de Winton
Trustee
William is a retired member of Lansdowne Partners and a former Managing Director of Morgan Stanley. He spent much of his career following the financial sector. He sits on a number of charity boards and is a founding Trustee of Unlocking Potential. He is also a founding Trustee of the SpringBoard Bursary Foundation which is the UK’s largest boarding school bursary charity.
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Simon Hillson
Trustee
Simon spent most of his career as a solicitor at leading City law firm Macfarlanes, where he trained and was a partner for over 20 years, latterly as head of the real estate practice. Simon is excited to be combining his legal skill with his love for walking.
Alice Lankester
Trustee
Alice has spent the past three decades in marketing and product roles in Silicon Valley and London, working in leadership roles for technology startups and early growth stage companies. Alice led marketing at one of Europe's leading venture capital firms, Balderton Capital. She has been a Co-founder and C-team member of startups funded by Kleiner Perkins, NEA, and Sequoia Capital, and CMO at business and consumer startups.
Our Patrons
Dr. Kathryn Barush
Assoc. Professor with Tenure, Berkeley
Kathryn Barush (D.Phil Oxon) has a particular interest in the art and material culture associated with pilgrimage. Her second book is Imaging Pilgrimage: Art as Embodied Experience (Bloomsbury: August 2021). She is Assoc. Prof of Art History and Religion at the Berkeley, CA Graduate Theological Union where she is in the process of founding a centre for art and interfaith pilgrimage (@pilgrim_travels).
Rt Revd Dr Martin Warner
Bishop of Chichester
The Diocese of Chichester stretches from Chichester in the West, to East Grinstead in the North, and as far East as Rye – i.e. the majority of our proposed route from Southampton to Canterbury – and therefore we are thrilled that Bishop Martin has pledged his support for the route.
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Nick Mayhew-Smith
Holy Place Expert (Network Dept)
Nick has written a number of books about sacred places and the landscape, most notably Britain’s Holiest Places (2011), which was made into a BBC Four television series. He recently completed a PhD on Celtic nature spirituality, which forms the basis of his latest book The Naked Hermit (2019).
Jill Purce
Teacher + Therapist + Author
Jill wrote the book ‘The Mystic Spiral’- detailing the way of the spiral journey in all cultures, which is the fundamental nature of pilgrimage. She teaches people how to discover their spiritual connection through voice and ritual, and advises us on designing the ritual elements of pilgrimage to be as appropriate as possible.
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Peter Owen Jones
Visionary Priest
Vicar of Firle, Sussex, Peter is well known as BBC1’s ‘Extreme Pilgrim’, as well as for his many books. With his extensive global pilgrimage experience, Peter is champion of our drive for churches to serve as pilgrim Sanctuary accommodation.
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