Highways and byways to fascinate Catholics, with Fr Nicholas Schofield as guide

For anyone thinking of having a holiday somewhere in England I have only one message to impart: take this book with you. Inspired by the “Highways and Byways” series of the long-distant past, Fr Nicholas Schofield has revisited his columns for the Catholic Times and turned them into a veritable English Baedeker for the traveller, holidaymaker or pilgrim.

By his own admission Fr Schofield has not produced an exhaustive list of religious sites that might be of interest to Catholics – there would be far too many for a single book. Instead he has produced a work that he suggests should be “dipped into rather than read cover to cover”. I did exactly that on a family holiday to the West Country earlier this year, in the car with my husband and two spaniels. We were on our way to join a set of grandchildren and their parents in Cornwall, and Fr Schofield’s book made the breaks in our journey much easier to choose.     

Slightly tight for time, we opted to stop at Exeter, Truro, and St Michael’s Mount – just short of Penzance. In Exeter we learned about St Sidwell, the cathedral’s medieval “salaried” cat and the ancient cults surrounding Bishops James Berkeley, Walter de Stapledon and Edmund Lacy. The last was an unusually con-scientious prelate for his day, and had a reputation for sanctity even before he died. When the cathedral was bombed in 1942, the damage dislodged masonry to reveal a collection of moving little votive offerings all around his tomb.

Pushing on to Truro, we entered Benson family territory. Edward White Benson was the Anglican bishop there before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in 1883. EF Benson, his son, is known as a famous novelist – Mapp and Lucia, and so on – and AC Benson, another son, wrote the lyrics to “Land of Hope and Glory”. Yet another literary son, however, was RH Benson – Robert Hugh – who became a Catholic and then a priest. I love his science fiction writing, but was surprised to find myself in good company: Pope Francis does as well.

Pleasant surprises like these are very much in Fr Schofield’s gift: he has done the hard work so his readers don’t have to. I didn’t know that it was possible to draw a straight line between all the chief sanctuaries dedicated to St Michael, but I found out at St Michael’s Mount: from Ireland to Israel by way of England, France, Italy and Greece. St Michael’s Mount is the English one, obviously; it was a daughter house of the famous Mont Saint Michel. It is said that Michael himself appeared there to a group of fishermen at the end of the sixth century.

Had we had time, I’d have loved to put the other south-western destinations on the list – but they will have to wait for another visit. Fr Schofield writes so evocatively about them that they seem irresistible, and it was like going on holiday with an entertaining and well-read friend. Alongside his work as a parish priest in West London and his duties as Archivist of the Archdiocese of Westminster he is a well-regarded historian and has published a number of other works. He has a stylish knack for bringing stories to life in a page-turning kind of way. 

The work is divided into regions, which I will get to when I can. Some I knew about already; others were entirely foreign. Flicking through the pages I can tell you that highlights include the holy wells at Kemsing and Otford in the south east, the Charterhouse and Syon Abbey in London and Middlesex and Anmer Hall, country home of the Prince and Princess of Wales, in the east. In the Midlands we encounter St Werbergh and her goose, while in the north the Skull of Wardley Hall recounts the heroic story of St Ambrose Barlow, martyred in 1641.

There are too many gems here to choose a favourite, and in any case I would probably be biased towards the Midlands – I was delighted to see that Fr Schofield mentions the churches of Shrewsbury and in particular the recent re-reordering of the cathedral which has restored it to at least some of its former beauty. My only regret, which I admit is not entirely reasonable given his established parameters, is that he has not cast his eyes further west. I hope that for those of us living in the borderlands he will soon produce a similar volume about Wales.

One of the especially attractive things about Highways and Byways is that it is full of popular religion – stories that may or may not have their origin in legend, but which have nonetheless filtered down through the generations and are still spoken of today. “I have unashamedly included venerable traditions and folk memories that may seem of dubious merit,” Fr Schofield writes, “not only because they are interesting in themselves but [also because] they can deepen our understanding.” This is faith lived with the head and the heart.

Fr Schofield also makes no apology for the fact that some of the stories he recounts come with an element of overlap: “some similarities between successive tales of dissolution and martyrdom”. It all makes it a very human book, full of examples of real people who had to wrestle with life just as we must today – but often with considerably higher stakes. Even when the stories echo each other, particularly those from the time of successive persecutions, he reminds us that “each place has its own unique colour and its own lessons to teach us”.

Faith, inevitably, is never very far away – although it doesn’t seem like preaching. With each story he presents, Fr Schofield draws his readers into reflection on what they might be able to take away in a spiritual sense. He does this most poignantly in an epilogue called “Our Final Pilgrimage”, in which he reflects on the death of his mother.

“Having traversed the highways and byways of this world,” he writes, “changing directions and retracing our steps many a time … we reach the gateway to our final destination, to peace, light and love.”

I certainly learned a lot from this book, and Catholic Herald readers on this side of the Atlantic – and of course Anglophiles on the other – will undoubtedly do so as well.

I suggest acquiring two copies: one to keep at home and another to store in the car – for those moments when you find yourself unexpectedly far away from home, wondering what to do next. You’re unlikely to be very far away from somewhere with an inspiring tale. As Fr Schofield wisely observes, “our Faith is embedded in the very soil of this land”.

Highways and Byways:  Discovering Catholic England by Fr Nicholas Schofield is published by Gracewing (£15.99)

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