Cornwall’s very own Camino: walking the St Michael’s Way

02.04.2024 - 11:27 / theguardian.com

It’s dawn when we step off the train at Lelant, a village tucked into a bay near St Ives. The early morning light is still intensifying as the distinctive, repetitive shrill of a song thrush wakes this sleepy corner of west Cornwall.

I’m in Cornwall with a friend to walk a pilgrim path – the St Michael’s Way from Lelant to St Michael’s Mount – that I first trod a few years ago. Back then, I was alone, fresh out of a toxic relationship, and trying to piece together my life against a backdrop of resurfacing trauma. Yet I hadn’t arrived feeling melancholic, because I had discovered, some time ago, the power of these ancient trails. And I say that as someone who is not in any way religious.

Say pilgrimage and people usually think of extended weeks-long walks. But a pilgrim path can be as long or as short as you like (as I discovered while researching my new book on Britain’s ancient paths). There are many examples of meaningful meanders found among recorded pilgrim paths that can be completed in a single day, or truncated sections of longer routes that can be just as rewarding as multiday quests. The main criteria is that they are a “walk with a purpose”. I believe they can help us all find meaning, whatever our beliefs.

Over the years I’ve walked many of these “micro-pilgrimages”, including the last five miles of the St Birinus Way in the Thames Valley, the 3½-mile St Thomas Way in Llancarfan (one of 13 identically named daylong circular pilgrimages between Swansea and Hereford), and one of the two 15-mile loops of the Porlock Pilgrim’s Trail in Exmoor. And each time, I’ve been truly amazed at the clarity I gain from these trails, no matter the length.

With a soundless nod – the sort that communicates a great deal between two old friends – we begin our St Michael’s Way walk beside the purple rosettes of towering viper’s bugloss. We pass a sign emblazoned with a scallop shell, marking the route as an official section of the Camino de Santiago (as of 2016), one of almost 300 paths encompassing more than 50,000 miles through 29 countries that people can walk to reach the ultimate destination.

Beside it is the church of St Uny, named after a Celtic missionary who converted the Cornish pagans to Christianity in the sixth century. He was not the only one to cross seas to get here. Though it was only designated a pilgrim footpath in 2014, old shipping records show that, rather than risk the perilous seas around Land’s End, those souls headed to England from Wales and Ireland would be dropped off at Lelant and then walk south to St Michael’s Mount, with some even continuing onwards to Spain.

As we have nearly 14 hours to cover just under 14 miles, our pace is relaxed. We grab and stamp our “pilgrim passports”