Southwell Minster as Gateway Cathedral

This walk is one I’ve wanted to undertake for a while now. It is a pilgrimage from Thurgarton Priory to Southwell Minster in Nottinghamsire. It is not a strenuous walk, but it is rather significant. And I wish to take this walk not simply because it is to Southwell, my favourite Minster Town, but also because it is a pilgrimage, a journey made by a pilgrim to a site of religious importance. To me, Southwell is an enormously important religious site, as it is the Minster that led me to England.

Since circa 2014 I’ve been somehwat obsessed with this little Minster town of Southwell. The town is adorable and the Minster impressive. When we were living in Nottingham we attended services rather regularly and Southwell is still a place we enjoy visiting, even when in-person services were suspended, as they were during lockdown.

Southwell Minster, Nottinghamshire

This is a photo of the Minster in 2019. As it is over 700 years old, it’s not much different today. On the right is the Chapter House, a truly stunning piece of late-medieval architecture. Its primary feature is the stone carvings: the Leaves of Southwell. I wish I could write poetry that is as elevated and magnificent as these carvings, but alas, I lack the medieval imagination to do them justice. Perhaps one day the glory will come to me in poetry. I know that God loves all of our efforts, our forms of Praise, but when I sit in the Chapter House and look up, look around me at the light and the stone I am compelled to silence and awe, rather than words.

My introduction to Southwell–the Gateway Cathedral Town– was Alison Milbank, canon theologian at the Minster, professor of religion in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Nottingham and, as of last week, my PhD supervisor. This reality is–and I pray always will be–one of the most humbling of my life, and for it I give daily thanks to God. That is the second reason for this pilgrimage: I wish to give thanks for the gift of study I was given, for the opportunity to work with one of my academic and theological role models (though, perhaps, a better word would be ‘girl crush’, but we aren’t in high school anymore are we?).

So, tomorrow I begin my Doctoral Pilgrimage: I, the Second Pilgrim–a title to be explained in detail later–will don the cloak and the hat and collect my shells as I journey forth, in search of the Celestial City, in the company of Faith, Goodness, Truth, and Beauty. So, Good Christian, lead on!