We aim to promote pilgrimage in Britain by helping to develop and publicise new and old paths as well as the practice of pilgrimage itself by making it open to all. Our core objective is to “advance British pilgrimage as a form of cultural heritage that promotes holistic wellbeing, for the public benefit.”
Our mission is to help build routes, infrastructure and support for pilgrimage all around Britain; create a community to support the work of the BPT and other organisations across the country by supporting them in return; communicate to create understanding, awareness and involvement; and thereby make pilgrimage popular, with strong participation across Britain.
We establish ‘on the ground’ physical infrastructure to form the basis of pilgrimage activity – communal buildings for low-cost accommodation that we term ‘Sanctuary’, equipment, physical objects like passport stamps, and local buy-in, particularly with our flagship projects, Old Way from Southampton to Canterbury and Way of Saints Aidan and David from Ferns Abbey, Wexford to St Davids Cathedral, Pembrokeshire. More generally, much of the core physical infrastructure is already in place – off-road footpaths, under-used churches, pubs and village shops. We simply need to join the dots… We engage with our digital and on-the-ground communities in the press, through our book ‘Britain’s Pilgrim Places’ and through our website. Finally, and most importantly, we actively go out to get people engaged with the practice of making pilgrimage on the ground.
