A notice outside St Nicolas’ Church welcomes pilgrims walking St Frideswide’s Way and the Camino Inglés, with a stamp available inside the church to record their visit.
St Frideswide’s Way is a 40-mile pilgrimage route from Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford to Reading Abbey. Launched in 2024, it follows the Thames Path through Abingdon, Dorchester-on-Thames, Wallingford and Pangbourne.
As Abingdon is one of the stops along the route, pilgrims can visit the former Abbey grounds and the town’s historic churches.
St Helen’s Church is often open, and its pilgrimage stamp was available today.
From Reading, the pilgrim route connects with the St James’ Way to Southampton, forming part of the wider Camino de Santiago, the network of pilgrimage routes leading to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where St James is honoured.
So the little sign at St Nicolas’ and the stamp available at St Helen’s are part of a much bigger pilgrimage network.
Yes, St Frideswide’s Way was launched in June 2024 by Christ Church Cathedral and the CSJ (Confraternity of St James) as the latest Camino Inglés pilgrimage route in the South of England. The original 40-mile Way, which simply followed the Thames Path, was updated in 2026 and incorporates 16 more churches. The new map booklet first went on sale at Christ Church Cathedral’s Open Doors event on Saturday 12th September 2026
Starting from the shrine of St Frideswide in Christ Church Cathedral, the new 52 mile/84 kilometre pilgrimage takes you from church to church as you wind through the countryside of the Thames Valley, following a network of county footpaths, and sections of the Thames Path and Ridgeway National Trails, to the Catholic church of St James and St William of York, which is built within the ruins of Reading Abbey.
The route passes other pilgrimage sites along the way in historic towns, such as Abingdon, Dorchester-on-Thames, and Wallingford.
In Reading, St Frideswide’s Way connects with the St James Way. Pilgrims may follow this section of the Camino Inglés, via Winchester, the ancient capital city of England, to the port of Southampton. The Spanish section of the Camino Inglés then continues from the Galician ports of A Coruña and Ferrol in Spain to its ultimate destination – the tomb of St James the Apostle in the Catedral Basílica de Santiago de Compostela. 25km (15.5) miles walked along St Frideswide’s Way, with accredited stamps in the ‘credencial’ or pilgrim passport, can be added to 75 km of the Camino Inglés in Spain to qualify the pilgrim for the coveted ‘Compostela’ – evidence of completion of one of the most famous pilgrim journeys in the world. St Frideswide’s Way is soon to be connected to the Finchale Camino, heading south from Finchale Priory near Durham, to link these three sections of the Camino Inglés in England.
A-Z Map Booklet of St Fridewide’s Way £12.00
Available from: Christ Church Cathedral Welcome Desk and online at http://www.csj.org.uk/shop/st-frideswides-way-a-z-mapbook (Please note, the update to the rout is so new that the CSJ website may not be quite up to date)
The full route is shown across 18, easy-to-follow 1:25,000 OS map pages
4 pages of helpful information about the route including way-markers, safety and flood warning, countryside code, go-slow Camino, pilgrim passports and stamps
4 pages on St Frideswide, medieval and modern pilgrimage
7 pages of written directions
Sized to easily fit in a jacket pocket (240 mm x 134 mm)
Lightweight with glossy water-resistant cover