We began in the Mary Garden...walked along the riverside...saying the Rosary...

...on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady  at Hampton Wick.

This is an annual walking pilgrimage, begun after discovering a story about St John Paul the Great.

In the 1970s, concerned about finding enough priests - in the difficult years under Communism - for his diocese of Krakow, he made a promise to our Lady that he would walk to every  Marian shrine within walking distance  of the city, if she would grant him one new young priest for each such pilgrimage. Soon his seminary was full...

So we've started a walking pilhgrimage... an adapted form of the Krakow idea.  Rather than go to various Marian shrines, a walking group starts in the Mary garden at this church, and  walks into Kingston,  crosses the Thames there, and then follows the river down to Hampton Wick,

We prayed the Rosary along the way, and sang the Regina Caeli at the shrine, and were given splendid refreshments and a happy social time  before departing to our homes...