The new 38-mile Archangel’s Way, a pilgrimage route in a rugged corner of Devon, straddles Christendom and ancient pagan sites
The story of the church of St Michael de Rupe begins – as all the best Dartmoor stories do – on a dark and stormy night. A sailor, stricken in a wild and furious sea, fell to the deck of his ship to pray for salvation. The almighty unveiled a mountain in the midst of the tempest where the ship duly made landfall: in gratitude the sailor built a church on its summit. The devil – who had unleashed that evil storm – did his best to prise the church from its foundations, but Archangel Michael sprung to its defence and became the patron of this Devon parish. The tale has many versions, but this is the general gist.
Today, St Michael de Rupe counts as the highest working church in southern England – poised dramatically on top of a western outlier of Dartmoor’s tors. This medieval building casts a striking silhouette over the west Devon landscape, but it also marks the start of the Archangel’s Way: a pilgrimage route created in 2021 by the diocese of Exeter that travels 38 miles eastward from here across Dartmoor to a second St Michael’s church in Chagford. I chose to walk the route in February when the moor was at its quietest and most mysterious – and though the seas of the famous folk tale had receded, on my visit the storm had not.
Continue reading… The new 38-mile Archangel’s Way, a pilgrimage route in a rugged corner of Devon, straddles Christendom and ancient pagan sitesThe story of the church of St Michael de Rupe begins – as all the best Dartmoor stories do – on a dark and stormy night. A sailor, stricken in a wild and furious sea, fell to the deck of his ship to pray for salvation. The almighty unveiled a mountain in the midst of the tempest where the ship duly made landfall: in gratitude the sailor built a church on its summit. The devil – who had unleashed that evil storm – did his best to prise the church from its foundations, but Archangel Michael sprung to its defence and became the patron of this Devon parish. The tale has many versions, but this is the general gist.Today, St Michael de Rupe counts as the highest working church in southern England – poised dramatically on top of a western outlier of Dartmoor’s tors. This medieval building casts a striking silhouette over the west Devon landscape, but it also marks the start of the Archangel’s Way: a pilgrimage route created in 2021 by the diocese of Exeter that travels 38 miles eastward from here across Dartmoor to a second St Michael’s church in Chagford. I chose to walk the route in February when the moor was at its quietest and most mysterious – and though the seas of the famous folk tale had receded, on my visit the storm had not. Continue reading… Walking holidays, Devon holidays, England holidays, United Kingdom holidays, Travel, Walking, Life and style, Anglicanism, Christianity
