THE diocese of Exeter has celebrated the launch of a recent 20-mile pilgrimage route from Lee Abbey to Lundy Island, a spot related to an extended and deep Christian spirituality, the Revd Jane Skinner, who plotted the route, says.
Mrs Skinner is the Team Rector within the Parkham Team Ministry, which incorporates the island 12 miles off shore. “This route gives us sea and land and sailing on the water, with an island destination at the tip of it. What more could you wish?” she says.
The pilgrimage is planned to take 4 days, in five stages. Pilgrims gather at St Mary’s, Lynton, to affix the Lee Abbey community at morning prayer at 8 a.m. The journey takes them first to Heddon Valley, and on to Combe Martin after which Ilfracombe to board the two-hour ferry journey. (In winter, the island is reached by helicopter.)
The route is the fifth within the diocese’s Devon Pilgrim project, designed to encourage walkers each to experience the spirituality of Devon’s ancient churches and holy places and to enjoy the sweetness and number of its landscapes.
The pilgrimage is designated as moderate to difficult, with hilly sections and steep inclines. Some parts of the journey are “quite a troublesome walk for just a little while, but so long as you’re reasonably fit, none of that ought to prove not possible to anybody”, Mrs Skinner acknowledges.
“I hope there’s a way of accomplishment, not least the fantastic landscape you may view from those top points of the island.”
The Bishop of Exeter, Dr Mike Harrison, and the Bishop of Crediton, the Rt Revd Moira Astin, were among the many first pilgrims on a part of the route. Dr Harrison remembers, as a baby on holiday at Woolacombe, gazing across on the island in excitement. “It’s been really nourishing simply to take time alone in prayer, but in addition engaging with others on the route as we absorb the great thing about the place,” he said.
“We understand how potentially exciting and enlarging happening a journey is. There’s something of that about pilgrimage, nevertheless it has the dimension of really bringing a possible enlargement to your individual spiritual life.”
