Details For The Tyburn Pilgrimage...

I have posted this stuff before, in one form or another, as the Tyburn Pilgrimage run by the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom follows the same route every year, and I was wary of re-hashing the same old stuff. However, given that it's likely to be the last Tyburn Walk, and it's the centenary, I have received a couple of comments asking for more details, so, here goes...

The walk starts off at 2:30pm from the churchyard of St. Sepulchre's, which is sort of diagonally opposite the Old Bailey. You can't miss the churchyard: it's raised up and surrounded by railings. We start here because it's opposite the site of Newgate Prison (where most of the Tyburn martyrs were held before being dragged to the gallows) and there is a bell which was rung at midnight when prisoners were to be taken out from Newgate for execution.

From St. Sepulchre's, it's a short walk down Snow Street, Farringdon Street and then Charterhouse Street, to St. Etheldreda's, Ely Place. We stop inside the church and recite two decades of the Rosary.

From St. Etheldreda's, we go down High Holborn for a bit, and then scoot down a side-road (possibly Gate Street) to walk past the Ship Tavern, which is where Catholics used to hold clandestine meetings, and then go on to the church of St. Cecilia & St. Anselm, Kingsway.

In St. Cecilia & St. Anselm's, which used to be the chapel of the Sardinian Embassy, we recite a decade of the Rosary. Like many Catholic churches in Central London, unless you know it's there, it's very easy to miss. I have had to tell taxi drivers exactly where it is on several occasions!

Now, the next bit of the walk is a little difficult for me to remember. For the past few years I have had some problem or other with my ankle and my knee (on two different legs, which makes it tricky) and so I have cheated by taking a taxi. And, when I did do the whole walk, I rarely bothered to notice which streets I was walking down: I just followed everyone else...

However, I think the route is basically back up Kingsway (right from the church), then left down High Holborn, and down to St. Giles High Street, with a brief stop at St-Giles-in-the-Fields, as this is the churchyard of what used to be the parish church of Tyburn. Many of the martyrs of the "Popish Plot" were buried here, and so the De Profundis is said for all those who died at Tyburn.

From there it is a very brief walk down a side road (possibly Denmark Place) to Charing Cross Road, then crossing over quickly to walk down Sutton Row to Soho Square and St. Patrick's. Inside St. Patrick's, we recite the last two decades of the Rosary, venerate the relics of St. Cuthbert Mayne and St. Oliver Plunkett, and sing Hail Queen of Heaven.

The walk then goes down Soho Street to Oxford Street, from there turning left, to walk all the way down past Oxford Circus, Bond Street, Marble Arch; crossing the Edgware Road brings you to the Bayswater Road, where the Tyburn Convent is located. Personally, I think that this is the most unpleasant part of the Walk, as the number of shoppers now out on Sunday makes it incredibly crowded.

Inside the convent chapel we recite the Litany of the London martyrs, sing Faith of Our Fathers, and receive Benediction. This bit starts somewhere between 5:30pm and 6pm, depending on how fast we have managed to walk...

I hope that helps. Fr. Tim did a very informative post a few years ago. I got most of the photos from Google Maps (the new street views are great fun... unfortunately, they weren't interested in getting the best shots of buildings, so traffic sometimes interferes, and they didn't go down every single road...)