The Martyrs' Walk...

...takes place each year on the Sunday nearest the feast of SS John Fisher and Thomas More. We start in the churchyard of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, and walk the route along which Catholic martyrs were dragged in the 16th and 17th centuries to brutal death at Tyburn. We stop at St Etheldreda's, Ely Place, SS Anselm and Cecilia in Holborn, St Giles-in-the-Fields, (CofE, goodwill visit) and St Patrick's Soho. We pray the Rosary and other prayers, and at each church we  have a short history-talk.

This year we had a large crowd - but we were well-prepared with microphone and leaflets etc and it all worked well.

St Sepulchre's (CofE) was having a parish lunch...it is a freshly-evangelical parish and they  couldn't have been more friendly, offered food, chatted,  and  we gave them a hearty round of applause by way of thanks and greetings as we started our Walk...

We began with a look at the result of the Battle of Bosworth and the rise to power of the Tudors, then tackle the heroism of More and Fisher, then the years that followed, with the ghastly cruelties of Elizabeth's reign,and the long centuries of unjust laws...There is so much of history and heroism to ponder on this Walk, from the Doleful Vespers  - many of the victims were buried at St Etheldreda's - to the noble Richard Challoner at Holborn...

At Tyburn we were uncomfortably squashed in the chapel, although things were eased as some of the pilgrims had finished the Walk at St Patrick's,..we were running late simply because the large numbers made for delays at the various stopping-places. Benediction with glorious singing, and then a splendid Tea with sandwiches and cakes and apparently bottomless teapots  offering much-needed refreshment after the long afternoon's walk...