In advance of the BBC2 TV series "Pilgrimage: the Road through Portugal", BBC Radio4 PM’s Anita Anand interviewed British Pilgrimage Trust patrons Emma Bridgewater and Fiona Reynolds, and me, the charity’s director. We discussed how modern pilgrimage includes atheists, is about opening your mind, and doesn't need to be religious.
Guy was on the TV in October 2021 speaking for 7 mins about pilgrimage in general, and the Old Way to Canterbury in particular, on BBC1's Sunday Morning Live – a wellbeing, ethics and multi-faith programme.
With Debbie McGee, Guy explores a section of the Old Way from Firle Beacon to Cuckmere Haven, via a tumulus, a Sanctuary church (with Peter Owen Jones), an ancient tree, a chalk man and a river estuary, ending at the sea.
Thank you The Guardian for giving Guy the chance to write this feature article. Various routes covered: St Magnus Way (Orkney); Whitby Way (York to Whitby); Peak District Old Stones Way; North Wales Pilgrim's Way / Taith Pererin Gogledd Cymru and BPT’s Old Way (Southampton to Canterbury).
Also mentioned: Megalithic Portal; Explore Churches National Churches Trust; and Labyrinths in Britain.
Article link here.
All our press coverage for the book by Nick Mayhew-Smith and Guy.
The book has been mentioned in: Times Luxx, The Independent, Waitrose Weekend, Town & Country, Woman’s Weekly, Tatler, Guardian, Telegraph, Catholic Herald, The Tablet, Country Walking, Ramblers Walk magazine, Countryman magazine, New European, House & Garden.
Last year, Guy, after by chance bumping into the Marketing Director of English Heritage, Luke Whitcomb, collaborated with them to create 10 new pilgrimage routes that connected their heritage sites of ruined churches, chapels and prehistoric ritual sites.
English Heritage collected all of these here on their website. The pilgrim routes were so popular with their members in 2019/20 that they have repeated it this year too, printing the routes again in their Annual Handbook for 2020/21, which has been sent by post out to 650,000 members. Below is the magazine feature they put out last year.
Robbie Hodges describes Guy as a ‘pilgrim liberal’ in his report on the 20th February in the Suitcase Magazine on the growing appeal of pilgrimages and how they can be personalised for many different purposes, the main radical example being LGBTQ+ pilgrimage destinations in Brompton (Emmeline Pankhurst Grave), Rievaulx (gay icon St Aelred), Bournemouth and Old St Pancras (Mary Wollstencraft Tomb).
Holly Tuppen has written this wonderful review in the Guardian of the Imbolc/Candlemas Avebury pilgrimage that Guy co-led with Charlotte Pulver and Chris Park on 3rd February, 2020.
Guy teamed up with Britain’s Holiest Places and Naked Hermit author Nick Mayhew-Smith, and they are working alongside the Association of English Cathedrals to create accessible 1-day pilgrimages to mark the Year of Cathedrals and Pilgrimage in 2020. The Times, Yorkshire Post, Peterborough Telegraph, Inspire Magazine and Premier News covered it, and Premier News again in the context of the long-term rise of cathedral attendance.
The Travel Editor of Tatler, Delilah Khomo, has written a brilliant Tatler article on the need to have your ‘healer rather than your dealer’ on speed-dial. The British Pilgrimage Trust’s enabling of social, in addition to spiritual aspirations are mentioned (!) and Guy is described as the pilgrimage guide who can create bespoke rituals and pilgrimages for Tatler readers.
Guy speaks on BBC Radio Leicester about multi-faith pilgrimage and the questions to ask yourself when you choose which pilgrimage route to walk.
At the end of May 2018, a farm pilgrimage was made journeying three miles from the source of the River Dickler with over 100 sustainable farmers, finishing at Fir Farm to arrive for the opening session of the Future of UK Farming Conference, led by Michael Gove, DEFRA Minister, and Minette Batters, President of the National Farmers’ Union. The pilgrimage was led by Paddy Hoare of Fir Farm and Guy Hayward of the British Pilgrimage Trust. Songs were sung, wells were met, holy water filtered, and farmland analysed.
Read article here.
Guy introducing the pilgrimage to assembled sustainable farmers at the source of River Dickler
In this English Heritage podcast, join Guy Hayward and Jason Goodwin from the British Pilgrimage Trust to walk a section of the South Dorset Old Stones Way (covered here) – one of 10 historic pilgrimage routes taking in English Heritage sites en-route.” See the wider project that Guy masterminded for the 2019-20 English Heritage handbook and magazine here, which has been mentioned in Spectator Life here.
Pilgrims reach Reading Abbey
Read article by James Tapper in Observer here.
