In 2019 Anne Hayward walked on pilgrimage around the mainly rural county of Cumbria in the far north-west of England, one of her aims being to explore the unique and often complex heritage of the churches in this area. With a particular focus on archaeological evidence for the Angles and the Vikings, the earlier stories of British and Irish influences on the process of Christianisation are also considered as is the later impact of the Normans and their characteristic Romanesque style of architecture.

Anne Hayward is a long-distance walker and contemporary pilgrim. Each year she walks from her home in south Wales to an ancient Christian site in the British Isles and then back again! However, with so many wonderful places to see, she also undertakes peregrinatio (the old word for pilgrimage) in areas that are more distant or to allow her to explore further in regions that she has already visited. These routes are always contiguous with previous pilgrimages, allowing Anne to extend what she has done on an earlier walk. Hence, the subject matter of this lecture begins at Lancaster before looping around Morecambe Bay and up the east side of the Lake District and as far north as Carlisle before coming south to Penrith, Ullswater and Kendal.
Anne read Modern History at Oxford University and went on to become a secondary school teacher. Along the way she also trained as an Anglican lay minister. She is the author of two books A Pilgrimage around Wales- in Search of a Significant Conversation and A Celtic Pilgrimage- a Walk from Wales to Brittany with a third book to be published early next year.