May the good angel of the Lord accompany you
(Prayer for Pilgrims seen in Worcester Cathedral)
From Church Street in Kempsey to the Church at Grimley, a summary of Day 35 of the End to End. We were a bit delayed getting started due to heavy traffic on the Worcester ring road. On arrival in Kempsey I knew about the footpath diversion, which went onto the A38 instead, familiar from yesterday. Today’s section of that road, due to various road works, was just two miles to the Worcester ring road. If this report is beginning to sound a bit circular that’s a common feature of ring roads.
I crossed into the city and found my way via the canal basin at Diglis Top Lock on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, back to the Severn Way. On the way into the city I’d been wondering what it might have been like to have been a pilgrim walking into Worcester before the Reformation. I later saw the place in the Cathedral where the body of a 15th century pilgrim had been found in the 20th century.
We had some lunch at the cafe in the cloister before visiting the cathedral. Amongst the memorials I was glad to see there was one to Geoffrey Anketell Studdert Kennedy, also known as Woodbine Willie, a Chaplain to the forces in WW1. He had served as a priest in a church in the Worcester diocese before the war.
Bob accompanied me out of the city to the footbridge that enables the Severn Way to cross to the other bank. It was a good path on the whole, close to the river, through small patches of woodland and lined with wild flowers but nowhere near as wet as the last two days.
Bob met me at a riverside pub beside the river and we had a drink before continuing by road to Grimley church to rejoin the Severn Way there again tomorrow.
Walter Raleigh’s Pilgrim Prayer
Give me my scallop shell of of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope’s true gauge,
And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.
JAL 10.05.2019
Day 35 of the End to End, Kempsey to Grimley Church via Worcester cathedral