Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

Author: Jonathan Dutton

  • The Apothecary’s Tale – Blisters, Boots and Becket’s Blood.

    With us ther was a DOCTOUR OF PHISYK, In al this world ne was ther noon him lyk To speke of phisik and of surgerye; For he was grounded in astronomye. Geoffrey Chaucer – The Physician’s Tale One of the principal concerns of a modern day pilgrim is probably the…

  • Last Post – Lest We Forget

    In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below. In Flanders Fields – John McCrae On Armistice Day it seems appropriate to file a ‘Last Post’ for my travel blog until…

  • Murder in the Cathedral – Close Encounters with Thomas Becket on the Via Francigena.

    What miserable drones and traitors have I nurtured and promoted in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric! The Life of St Thomas – Edward Grim On the evening of 29th December 1170. Shortly after Becket had finished celebrating Vespers, four…

  • Meditations on pilgrimage, monasteries and the Christian concept of charity

    My pilgrimage to Rome will give me the opportunity to sample the monastic way of life in much the same way as pilgrims travelling along the Via Francigena would have done staying in hospices run by religious orders along the route. I’ll be stepping out of my ‘comfort zone’ and…

  • A Brief History of the Benedictine Order

    As I’m hoping to spend time in a number of Benedictine monasteries on my walk to Rome, I thought it might be helpful to write a blog post on the history, teachings and way of life of the Benedictine Order of Monks or the ‘Black Monks’ as they are popularly…

  • The day the Cornish invaded Guildford

    In general, Guildford has had a blessedly peaceful history. It has the good fortune to be situated in a long settled part of England and shelters behind the joint protection of London and the Southern Coastal defences. Aside from the massacre of Alfred Atheling’s followers in 1036 and the far…

  • Telling the Tale of William Tell

    I am ashamed to say that I know very little about Switzerland. In a way that’s a bit odd as I spent a large part of my life working for a Swiss bank and visited Switzerland on numerous occasions. Yet I know far less about Switzerland than say Belgium, I…

  • Welcome to my blog

    Hi and welcome to my blog! My name is Jonathan Dutton. I live with my wife Olivia and our two dogs (Islay and Puzzle) in Winterbourne Stoke, a small village in Wiltshire near Stonehenge. We live adjacent to St Peter’s church, which dates back over 900 years to the Norman…