Changes to St Edmund Campion Pilgrimage 2022

John Lynn KSC, Pilgrimage coordinator for the St Edmund Campion pilgrimage shares news of some important changes to the Portsmouth leg of this year’s pilgrimage…

This year’s St Edmund Campion Pilgrimage where the relic of St Edmund Campion is carried from church to church through the Thames Valley will not have the opportunity for Mass to be celebrated in the barn at Lyford Grange. It was at the Grange that the Jesuit priest Edmund Campion was captured before being shackled to a cart and dragged  through the Thames Valley to London and put on trial.  Campion was subsequently hung, drawn and quartered with Alexander Briant and Ralph Sherwin on 1st December 1581.  The barn is in need of some serious renovation as shown by the pictures below. The footings and most of the outside woodwork will have to be replaced to make the barn safe. We will visit the site in early 2023 to establish if Mass can be celebrated next year on this historical site.

Meanwhile, the first Mass of this year’s pilgrimage will be celebrated at the chaplaincy of Campion Hall, Oxford University on Sunday 29th May at 11.00am.  It was at St John’s College, Oxford  that Campion who was an eminent lecturer fell out of favour with Queen Elizabeth the first’s  parliament. Campion’s  relic will then be carried by the Knights of St Columba through the Thames Valley to Tyburn Convent near Marble Arch replicating where possible Campions journey with daily masses being celebrated at over fifty churches and locations in the Birmingham, Northampton, Portsmouth and Westminster Dioceses, This year the Tyburn Convent Mass will be on Sunday 24th July at 4.00pm and the Stonor Chapel Mass has been delayed until Sunday 11th September. It was Stonor where there is a priest’s hole and Campion famously hid his printing press. This year’s pilgrimage schedule on its fifty six  day journey can be found here: www.province30.co.uk. Further details from John Lynn via email  or telephone 07931 292934 or 01628 636668.