17-05-2025
Empty beaches and Roman ruins on the UK's prettiest pilgrimage trail
After his death in AD642, St Oswald's remains were scattered far and wide. A tooth went to Winchester and a finger to St Paul's Cathedral. Fragments of his skull ended up in Germany and the Swiss Alps. So venerated was this Anglo-Saxon king that his remains were coveted all across Christendom. He was a hero, a kind of King Arthur figure for the nascent Kingdom of England (though Oswald was definitely real). And though his body parts became far flung, I suspect his heart (metaphorically speaking) remained in his native Northumbria, on those places along the 97-mile St Oswald's Way from Lindisfarne to Hadrian's Wall, where he famously vanquished an invading Welsh army. That battle site is Heavenfield, a place name whose peculiar poetry lodged in my mind. One spring day I set out to walk there.
First I boarded a northbound train at King's Cross. There were views of Peterborough Cathedral (once home to Oswald's arm) and York Minster (once also containing a bit of Oswald, unspecified). The train slowed beside Durham Cathedral (an erstwhile home to his head). But everyone knows this train journey is at its most majestic north of Newcastle. Here the railway shrugs off the usual lineside clutter of buddleia and barbed wire, the views suddenly become far-reaching and unbounded, taking in shining estuaries, marram grass and marine air. Those on board glance up from their phones as the only 'coast' on the East Coast Mainline materialises: a taunting presence for any English passenger travelling north of Berwick, for these last miles of the country are also the very loveliest. They are sacred too. Lindisfarne soon appeared, silhouetted against a sparkling sea. An hour later, having disembarked at Berwick and caught an onward taxi, I was standing on the tidal causeway that links Lindisfarne to the mainland. The tide was slack and low, the sun shining. Everyone was chipper because Newcastle United had just won the League Cup.
'The weather's canny,' said the taxi driver who dropped me off. 'St Oswald is smiling on you.'
The first miles of St Oswald's Way took me inland, crossing fields full of molehills and month-old lambs, the path meandering back and forth across the East Coast Mainline. There were no foot bridges: a lineside phone box connected me to the signalman. 'You are now safe to proceed,' he intoned with a priest-like solemnity. I hurried on.
With the possible exception of Cornwall, nowhere in England clings to its local saints as tightly as Northumberland. Thousands visit Lindisfarne because of its connections to St Cuthbert, whose nature-loving philosophy and wild swimming habits resonate among the environmentally conscious. But the island's story really begins with St Oswald, the warrior king who first offered this landmass as a place for a monastery in the 7th century. Oswald was part of a dynasty of Northumbrian monarchs, all with unpronounceable names, a fondness for confusing alliances and a talent for familial backstabbing. All you need to know is that Oswald returned home from exile in Scotland to claim his rightful throne, defeat the invading Welsh and be among the first to spread the good news in pagan England.
Over those days of walking, I came to know him in a small way. He stood in stone behind the altar of St Aidan's Church, Bamburgh: stoic, bearded, a king from a pack of cards. He struck a more contemplative figure in wood, carved into the pulpit at St John the Baptist Church, Alnmouth. A pilgrimage along St Oswald's Way is a Christian one, but it is also a journey into the soul of his former kingdom. Of those old Anglo-Saxon lands — Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia — Northumbria is perhaps the last one still meaningful to its residents. Oswald is still present from birth to death in these parts, lending his name to primary schools and also to the northeast's biggest hospice.
'Medieval saints were once perceived as friends and neighbours,' Dr Anne Bailey of the University of Oxford told me. 'Both then and now they seem to offer people a sense of identity, a reassuring sense of community, especially as their stories and legends are often tied to the local landscape.'
From the battlements at Bamburgh — the modern successor of the castle from which Oswald had his court — the footpath travelled some 28 miles south along the coast. I walked half of that distance on the sand. These were not the congested coves of bank holiday Cornwall, but Northumbrian beaches: vast at high tide and swelling to the size of deserts or Bolivian salt pans once the waves made their retreat. It was shoulder-season on this northern shoulder of England, so some beaches were without footprints altogether. Only the dogs that outran the surveillance of their owners left pawprints to intersect my own. I tied my boots to my backpack and went barefoot. I picnicked by the ashes of driftwood campfires. I heard the thwip of a passing golf ball on the seaside links. I saw swans out on the sea, and saw too that ancient instinct common to Anglo-Saxon menfolk in the northeast: to whip off shirts at a rumour of sunshine, and expose swan-white skin.
Beyond Warkworth Castle, the path veered inland, the direction Oswald would have led his army to confront Cadwallon of Gwynedd, who had invaded his kingdom. Here, St Oswald's Way crosses landscapes as empty as any in England: endless rolling fields, moorlands the hue of Newcastle Brown Ale. Chains of pylons hummed and phone masts relayed calls between England and Scotland. There was an older piece of infrastructure too, present since AD122. St Oswald's Way briefly travels along Hadrian's Wall, reaching its end destination at the tiny church at Heavenfield. It was walking along the Roman parapet that I bumped into its vicar, the Rev Sarah Lunn.
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'Whenever I have something troubling me, I walk up here,' she explained to me as we walked. 'Oswald is still a presence here. We know he walked in this landscape.'
She led me to the church — marking the spot where Oswald erected the first wooden cross on English soil before defeating the Welsh, his forces trapping them against the Roman Wall. The church we entered was small, lit only by candles. Mice had eaten out the innards of the Victorian organ so it no longer worked; some years ago the bell fell from the tower in a storm. Lunn explained that the key to Heavenfield was also lost long ago, meaning anyone can wander in and savour its particular silence, and perhaps reflect on the righteous battle once fought here, and other battles fought in other places at other times.
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I walked many pilgrim trails for my book, On This Holy Island, andSt Oswald's Way is still one of the quietest of England's long-distance paths. But I still sense that Oswald might become a saint for our times: a king who stood resolute when his land came under attack. Not so far from the watchtowers of Bamburgh is the RAF control centre at Boulmer, scanning UK airspace for threats from afar.
Lunn kindly gave me a lift to Newcastle station, and soon I rolled again past those cathedrals where bits of Oswald's body were once stored: Durham, York, Peterborough. After spending just a few days on his trail, I felt oddly Smith was a guest of Macs Adventure, which has four nights' B&B on a self-guided itinerary along St Oswald's Way from £485pp, including luggage transfers and maps ( On This Holy Island by Oliver Smith is out now in paperback (Bloomsbury £10.99). To order a copy go to or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
By Siobhan Grogan
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