Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella

St James the Great, our Patron Saint, is the same as "Santiago" and people have been making pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostella in north west Spain for over 1000 years. In 2004, 180,000 people received their official certificate from the cathedral in Santiago to say they had completed the pilgrimage. St James's day is July 25th, and the day before, to celebrate the festival, a number of our congregation went on a "mini pilgrimage" down from the church and across the fields to Bagley Lane and the home of our church-warden Paul Huntbach and his wife Ann for a barbecue. We were met there by more who had travelled by car, so that we were about 40 in all (though only 20 had signed up to come!). The rain held off until we were all under cover and were tucking in to the food and drink, and a great time was had by all. We were joined by Phillipa Atkey from Market Drayton, who had recently completed the real pilgrimage with her husband and son.

If anyone is tempted by the thought of going on pilgrimage, on foot or by bicycle, all the help you need can be got from Marion Marples, the Secretary of the Confraternity of St James, based in London, and available through their web site: www.csj.org.uk (The website link that was here no longer works) .

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