A Camino-type walk has been launched in the UK to highlight the royal women who pioneered Christianity in the county of Kent fourteen centuries ago. The route connects churches in Canterbury, Lyminge and Folkestone, and crosses parts of the Brentwood Diocese.
Entitled the Royal Kentish Camino, the themed walking route has been developed as a joint initiative by the churches of St Martin in Canterbury, St Mary and St Ethelburga in Lyminge and St Mary and St Eanswythe in Folkestone, <a href="https://www.lymingeparishcouncil.org.uk/Royal_Kentish_Camino_47654.aspx"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">reports</mark></a> the Lyminge Parish Council website.
The route celebrates the achievements of three powerful women from successive generations of the Kentish Royal Family in the 6th and 7th Centuries AD, a period that was a foundational time in the creation of England as a nation state.
The route of just over 23 miles (37.7km) begins at the church of St Martin in Canterbury, which is part of the World Heritage Site that also contains Canterbury Cathedral and St Augustine's Abbey.
St Martin's Church is regarded as the oldest church in the English-speaking world, used before the end of the 6th century by Queen Bertha, who is thought to have encouraged her husband <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aethelberht-I"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">King Aethelberht</mark></a> to invite Pope Gregory I the Great to send the Christian mission that ultimately led to the conversion of England.
Queen Bertha is thought to have prayed with Saint Augustine in a chapel on the site. With her husband, they established the first Christian royal family in England.
St Mary and St Ethelburga Church in Lyminge contains remains of a church dated to the time of Queen Ethelburga, daughter of Bertha. She and her husband King Edwin were involved in the <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/one-fallen-king-one-risen-king-braving-the-weather-to-seek-arthur-and-early-christianity-along-hadrians-wall/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">conversion of Northern England to Christianity</mark></a>.
After the death of her husband, Queen Ethelburga returned to Kent to live at Lyminge. She founded a church in the 630s, that was re-excavated in 2019.
From Lyminge, the Royal Kentish Camino route climbs up onto the ridge of the North Downs and passes the ancient church at Paddlesworth, which is dedicated to St Oswald, one of the first English saints, and may have been founded by Ethelburga's daughter Eanflæd.
Having reached the coast above Folkestone, pilgrims descend the cliff to the harbour, and then climb the opposite cliff where Bertha's granddaughter Eanswythe founded the first church in Folkestone around 660. Here the Royal Kentish Camino pilgrimage ends at the shrine of a saint whose relics are still preserved and venerated in the church she founded almost 1,400 years ago.<br><br>Recently the Vatican <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/pilgrimage-emphasised-by-vatican-as-opportunity-for-indulgences-during-jubilee-2025/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">announced that pilgrimage will be an opportunity for indulgences</mark></a> during Jubilee 2025. Pilgrimage continues to undergo a revival, with a <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/why-young-people-love-the-chartres-pilgrimage/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">record number of people</mark></a> going on this year’s Paris to Chartres pilgrimage.
For now, the UK lags behind the rest of Europe, especially the likes of Spain and Portugal with their <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/pilgrims-progress-to-santiago/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Camino de Santiago routes</mark></a> that crisscross the Iberian Peninsula, and <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/pilgrimage-standoff-assisi-or-santiago-de-compostela-its-a-tough-call/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">Italy with the Via di Francesco</mark></a>, when it comes to pilgrimage access and infrastructure. <br><br>But projects such as the Royal Kentish Camino and <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-road-to-wild-wales-exploring-the-welsh-pilgrimage-landscape/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">efforts by the British Pilgrimage Trust</mark></a> to bolster pilgrimage routes to sites such as <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/tales-of-walsingham-a-pilgrim-reflects-on-his-visit-to-englands-nazareth/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">"England's Nazareth" in Walsingham</mark></a> are paying off, and helping re-energise the tradition of pilgrimage across this <a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/reading-on-this-holy-island-a-modern-pilgrimage-across-britain-can-leave-you-yearning-for-a-bit-more-religious-commitment/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">once more holy island</mark></a>. <br><em><br>Photo: A 19th-century illustration of St Augustine preaching to King Æthelberht and Queen Bertha. (Screenshot from <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/women-in-history/queen-bertha-historical-enigma/"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">www.english-heritage.org.uk</mark></a>.)</em><br><br>
