Pilgrims’ Platter

crisps and cheese as always, but more al fresco

You’ll read in an issue of Weird Walk a passing reference to ‘a newly established pilgrimage that rambles through the Golden Valley, and allows you to sleep on the floor of every chapel you pass by.’ This will play on your mind, open tabs on your laptop, instigate exploratory emails and, after many moons, much daydreaming and sporadic admin, lead to packing backpacks and marking up OS maps for a week of walking in mid-May.

You’ll not know Herefordshire at all, but will be a real sucker for romantic language of the meadows and foothills of the Black Mountains, trails between the Wye Valley and the Golden Valley, apple orchards, ruined castles, holy wells, and the medieval churches that serve as night sanctuaries. The mysticism, ghost stories and entreaty to bring your own faith or no-faith to the pilgrimage will appeal, with religion more of a spinoff interest, obviously bound up in the history of the thing.

You’ll not need to wang on too much about the route or landscapes after the fact, but you’ll certainly go up and down, over and through, and have your breath seized by views from the Black Mountains. You’ll climb near-vertical hills, stumble on clods, hurdle countless stiles, open/close innumerable gates, do some light straight line missioning, shower much less than usual, develop a circadian rhythm considered mad-antisocial in any other circs, fashion pillows from t-shirts in sleeping-bag bags and engage in the very devil’s work i.e. assembling and disassembling Vango campbeds. You’ll survive and conquer the Slough of Despond, the Primrose Path of Dalliance (well, primarily buttercups in this case), the ROUS-plagued Fire Swamp and the Bog of Eternal Stench. (The latter will cling to your shoes until you scrub them inside and out for the second time on your return.) You’ll put one foot in front of the other and it will be magic.

You will delight in all this:

Churches will always hove into view; they’ll never ‘appear’, you’ll never just ‘see’ them, they’ll unquestionably hove. Whenever failing to clock the stile, scouring the hedge and scratching your head, you’ll detect the most nettle-strewn thistle-thick bit and that will be it: sting marks the spot. You’ll become a connoisseur of stiles, an expert on the wide spectrum, from rotting and hazardous to plush library steps or, indeed, a stairway to heaven (stomping back to earth the other side). You’ll develop a third eye for the yellow arrows signalling public footpath routes, a hyperfocus on finding them in uncertain territory. Hopelessly wrapped in OS map, then: divine intervention! Though often they’ll be half-broken off, ailing yellow canaries. You’ll guzzle your homemade mixed mixed nuts trail mix: maize kernels, almonds, raisins, sultanas, redskin peanuts, caramelised cashews, strips of mango that become slightly salted. You’ll replenish partway through the week with dried cranberries, pecans and pretzels (you’ll grab the gluten free pretz by mistake, with their odd texture and too brittle twisted bods). And of course you’ll drink your thermos instant coffee from a metal tankard like any good pilgrim.

Nearing Eaton Bishop on day one, you’ll have a jovial chat with a corduroy man clutching mugs and the end bit of a fruitcake loaf as he suggests a small detour to see a beautiful hill-top view and meet a field of cows. You’ll covet his idyllic home set in its sunny glade. You’ll do the longest hardest day on a Monday when the village pub at the end of it is closed. But you’ll have a very small bottle of whisky packed to accompany your church-kettle packet-noodle dinner. The next day you’ll finish at a village where the pub is being refurbished and doesn’t reopen until the following month. But you’ll perform your own pub, sitting at the riverside tables with tinnies of cider procured earlier from Peterchurch Village Store, slightly tepid and shaken up, chugged alongside your faux-pub snack of choc raisins. The day after that you’ll finally go to a pub next door to the church you’re sleeping in, where there’s one cider and one ale on tap and wine comes in those mini-bottles. You’ll buy pints of Stowford Press and Black Sheep Smooth, plus a bag of beef McCoy’s, and be told the rules of Phat by the landlord, a game sort of similar to Whist, with boards akin to Cribbage. You’ll watch a group of local blokes commune for a pre-dinner game.

You’ll stay a night in Michaelchurch bell tower and try not to think about that Midsomer Murders episode. Big bottles of Pilgrim H2O will be on this church’s rider, together with KitKats and – manna from heaven for walking lads – Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers (cue the old joke that your dad accounts for most of the 5 million made and sold a week, ho ho). A few days later you’ll be cajoled into joining a bell ringing group in a different bell tower while on your way back after several bevs and a double gin. You’ll be drunk on, yes, alcohol, but also the heady pleasure of having your first pub dinner of the trip. You’ll learn that they usually practice at Michaelchurch bell tower (Chekhov’s bell tower!). You’ll be a bad bell ringer. But also an open-hearted recipient of patient teaching, friendly initiation and a Roses chocolate from the tub for all attendees. You’ll try not to think of that Midsomer Murders episode.

Not far from Craswall you’ll buy homemade pies and bottles of local perry from a roadside farmshop run by an aproned woman who’ll be midway through making more pies when you arrive. A gorgeous gregarious cat named Bard will join you. Later, sitting in a graveyard, you’ll enjoy the perfectly seasoned puck of bean and roast veg pie.

You’ll have packed a wodge of Westcombe cheddar, not your favourite of the clothbounds but stunning when paired with Pickled Onion Walkers sourced from Madley’s village shop. Top canapé. You’ll be in luck when you pass through Peterchurch as the church cafe will open just as you walk by. You’ll have an ambrosial early lunch, the first hot food not from a kettle or microwave: warm baguettes filled with butter, egg and bacon/veggie sausage, sachets of both red and brown sauce. More luck when you’ll see a sign for Rowlestone Farm ice cream parlour when it’s sweltering. A scoop of stem ginger, but you’ll also try a lick of Guinness flavour, very good. Less luck when you’ll be followed by a sad crazed cow through a series of neglected, broken-gated fields, cow howling all the while. You’ll glance two dead lambs along the way, the cow’s mad lament in the thankfully growing distance. It’ll feel like you’re in a video game. You’ll then sit in the hot sun and overgrown grounds of a Friends of Friendless Churches church for a bite to eat, and have a wee in some nearby nettles.

Towards the end of the route you’ll have matured some generic vacpacked cheddar in gentle temps (squashed in backpack, sunny climes) and after a long walking stretch you’ll put this and some Granny Smith – all cut haphazardly with your penknife – into a cheap brioche bun and it will be transcendent. The best sandwich of your life.

You’ll have basket food in the pub that night – chicken burger and chips and not quite enough sauce sachets – as you witness a real live meat raffle. The host of jolly villagers will then arrange a big barbecue gathering to feast on all the winnings. You’ll ask for an invite. Bill will give you a whole chocolate cake for some reason, the most Bruce Bogtrotter Tesco can manage. Bill being the chap who’ll bring both the key for the church in Kingstone (sadly vandals have ruined the always-open-door policy of this particular church) and some excellent chat about a 12th-century (storage) trunk made out of a single (tree) trunk.

You’ll learn to always check for hot water at a nearby block of showers even when it states in pilgrim lore (info sheets) that it’s cold water only. Hot water miracle! You’ll also be wise to check the visitor book messages for mentions of a shower (if there is one, there’ll certainly be raptures about it) and look properly in the labyrinthine loo quarters of a church hall. Behold! Shower! And you shall be reborn. You’ll try to remember to record oohs and arpeggios in each church for your dungeon synth project. And you’ll be gleefully keen to collect inky stamps in your pilgrim credentials at every church too. Except you’ll miss Madley, and this will bug you forever. You’ll have been distracted by buying Pickled Onion Walkers at the time, a rare crisp to find in the wild. You’ll return to Hereford, kiss the pilgrim stone outside the cathedral and head to one of the many(!) pubs for delicious pints and a pork pie.