The true valour needed to go on pilgrimage in Britain

Every summer solstice, thousands of people gather at Stonehenge to greet the longest day of the year. Judging from the druids in the crowd, you might think this tradition dates back to pagan Britain. In fact, it was started in 1974 by members of a hippy commune who decided to host a free festival among the stones. The Pope, the Dalai Lama and John Lennon were invited, along with a handful of British Airways hostesses.

These ‘interactions between ancient and modern faith’ fascinate the travel writer Oliver Smith. On This Holy Island is a journey across Britain, telling the story of a dozen pilgrim destinations and the spiritual seekers drawn to them. As well as recounting the history of these places, it explores how later generations have re-enchanted them.

Smith’s journey took place in the wake of the pandemic. Originally, he planned to walk the Camino to Santiago. When the opportunity came, lockdowns limited his options for travel. Instead, he decided to visit some of Britain’s holy sites, from the prehistoric to the present, looking for sanctity closer to home.

The journey includes several well-known shrines. Smith spends a night in a tidal shelter on the causeway to Lindisfarne and attempts to float around Iona on a packraft. He also searches for more out-of-the-way spots, climbing into Paviland Cave on the Gower Peninsula, the oldest ceremonial burial ground in Europe, and hiking to the Old Forge on the Knoydart Peninsula, arguably the most remote pub in the country. His journey takes in mountains, lakes, suburban streets and ‘the immense extent of an unravelling sea’, and he writes well about all these settings. He also describes the tacky ephemera that decorate most tourist destinations, including the carparks, campsites and votive offerings of the New Age: ‘Apples, incense, crystals (one with the price tag still on).