Pilgrimage End – Holy Cross Church at Ashton Keynes, Wiltshire. The Athelstan Pilgrim Way.

My final church of the Athelstan Pilgrim Way taking in 6 benefices and 36 churches along its route through the county of Wilshire in the UK. The entire route was completed as a cycling journey which I started in May 2025 and ended October 2025.

My love of cycling coupled with a love and interest in the older and more ancient churches along the route made this a fabulous cycling experience and a project that I thoroughly enjoyed. I have also met some lovely people on my travels.

A fabulous resource if you have a love of cycling or a wish to do part of or the whole of the Athelstan Pilgrim Way is – Andy’s Adventures. YouTube.com/channel/UCg1xap7KdhbQj12vvi6yf0g?view_as=subscriber

Good morning. It is the 11th of October, 2025, and I’m out today in the beautiful and ancient county of Wilchshire to visit my final church on the Aleston Pilgrim Way at Ashton Kees. So, I’ve just left Marmsbury and I’m now cycling up towards Crricade and going off a bit on the um on the side there. So, it’s not quite as far as Cricade. So, not quite as far as I had to cycle a couple of weeks ago. So, those of you who did watch my last video know that my last journey out, I was struck down with something on route. So, I had to bypass the uh Ashton Ke. But today, I’m fighting fit, rowing to go. So, let’s get this done and uh I will see you at the church. Okay, we have found the church at Ashley Kes. Here we are. This is a Commonwealth wolf grow site. Welcome to the Holy Cross Church at Ashton Kings. Lots of tree branches overhanging. So, I’m not sure what um you’ll get from this, but here we go. This is the bell tower. Looking quite tough. And you can see those figures right at the very top. As you come down, that’s where the bells are. It’s probably the ringing chamber on the second floor down. And then you come down to the ground floor. It’s a lovely stained glass window there. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get into the church being a Saturday, but we’ll have a quick look around. Oh, look at those lovely stained glass windows. Absolutely beautiful. Okay, we’ll have a look around the rest of the ground, but let’s try and get into the church first. So, we’re now approaching the entrance. [Music] Right. I can’t see the stamp out here, but I haven’t had a good look yet. So, so that’s all the stuff of the harvest festival. And there’s a poster of the way. Let’s have a good look around. Okay, I can’t see here. So, we’ll just hope the church is open. The church is actually locked, so I can’t do a lot more. But we can go and have a look around the grounds. I will have a look outside just to see if I’ve missed a box or anything. A lovely cross just above the door there. That’s right. I haven’t seen that before. What that condition? No, there isn’t a stamp um outside here. So, I’ll be heading off to Marmsbury to pick it up. But we can have another quick look around the churchyard. This this is definitely worth a trip back because those windows all look fantastic. I know some of those windows been put there in memorial and one of those memorials was to a couple of villagers I believe who uh lost their lives to the Zebra fail disaster I think in 1987 was it? So one of those stain windows on the west side I believe. So, we continue going around. It’s always worth checking that there’s no other entrance. It’s a very big uh cemetery. It’s one of the biggest ones I’ve seen, I think. And that is another entrance here. So, I will check it. No. [Applause] So, it’s another view of the tower up there. Let’s have a look here. No, that door’s locked. Let’s try again. No, that’s definitely locked. All right, so that’s the All Saints Church at Ashton Kees. No access. So I will head back down to Marmsbury now. But do you know I might just head over to Lie to see if the church is open there because I’m not far from Lie. So So anyway, I’ve been to the church. I’ve seen the church. No access. So I will uh try the church and live because I’m very close. But I will um end my ride today at Momsbury Abbey because it is possible you can collect the uh stamps there if you’ve been unable to do it at the churches. Okay, I will see you back on the road. Here we are in Msbury heading towards the aby now. [Music] Yummy. Yeah. Yeah. [Music] M’s happy. Good afternoon. So, I’ve just made it home and have I’ve now completed the Athlam Pilgrims Way. I’ve visited all the 36 churches in the six benefices which make up the Pilgrim’s Way. And I thought I’d just spend a little bit of time reflecting on the experience of it and how I found it. I think it is absolutely a wonderful trip to make. Now, obviously, a lot of it I did in the summer when the weather was very nice, so it’s going to get a bit colder, but certainly the journeys to the individual churches are more than worth it. You get such a lot from them. uh the history of the churches and it it really is a very good route around. I mean obviously you don’t have to do all of the benefits is totally up to you and you don’t have to cycle it. You know a lot of people walk around walk around particular benefices maybe they live in them or they’re on holiday or something like that. You know, there are some people who drive around and it’s absolutely fine. However you want to do it. They’re there for you to enjoy and I have thoroughly certainly enjoyed this. So, first of all, I want to say a big thank you to Andy uh my friend who has the YouTube channel Andy’s Adventures uh because he kind of put me onto this route. Um his videos are in uh if you go to Andy’s Adventures, I will put a link to his channel in the uh description of the video, but if you are interested in doing the Athen Pilgrims Way, then you know go to Andy’s videos. Um they’re very well executed and you know, he’s I know now he’s also finished the route. So reflecting back I think certainly in the upper temps and down at the Banebrook benefaces some of the churches were locked and in the other benefaces if the church is locked usually the stamp is actually left in the porchway but some of these it wasn’t left in the porchway but saying that this is a work in progress. Yes. Uh, you know, not everything is firing all cylinders yet. Yeah. But it’s getting there. If you do want to do a particular benefits, what I would advise you did, you go to the Athan Pilgrim Away Facebook page and you can message them and they get straight back to you. They’re very good. I mean, I sent a message one weekend and I got a message back which surprised me. I thought they would be bit Monday to Friday 9 to5 but not at all. I got a message back so they’re really good and you know if there are any questions you have they are really the people to ask. So you go there you can pick up the you can pick up the pilgrim passport you can pick up the books you can pick up most of the stuff in the individual churches and just go out and enjoy it. you know, our churches are there for us to enjoy. I think the only, if I have to say this in a negative, it’s not really, but sometimes when I would cycle out to the churches, it would be locked and the stamp wasn’t around. Now, why I say that wasn’t really a negative is because it was an excuse for another cycle ride. And that’s exactly what I did today. I went out and uh the church was again locked but I always have the I always have the uh option of going to Momsbury Abbey where they keep all the stamps for all the benefits there as well. So if I visited the church and I can’t get a stamp then I feel I have a right to go and get a stamp from Msbury Abby. So that is always an option. Some of the like I said some of the churches were quite difficult to get into but I just kind of trusted to look rode out and sometimes they the church were open sometimes they weren’t and then but it was a very easy quick fix. I mean one particular church I went to the stamp wasn’t in the porch or nothing. I sent a message to Athen Pilgrim Way and they sorted it all out and the next time I went up there the stamp was in the porch. So things do get sorted out and like I said there’s it’s a work in progress amongst the six benefits. Some of the benefits has been going a bit longer so they’ve got a better idea about how it’s going you know but some of the benefits have only literally been going what a month four six weeks. So hopefully if you do decide to do it, it’ll be ready. They’ll all be ready and and um easy to access for you. Anyway, it’s been an immense pleasure. Thank you very much if you have seen my videos. Um like I said right at the very beginning, I’m a new YouTuber, so my you my YouTube videos aren’t quite there yet, but I’m going to continue working. I’m going to try and do a little bit of um some visits to the church’s uh conservation trust properties around Glostershare at some point which is kind of my next project. So that’s up and coming. But anyway, I hope um you will have a great weekend. Like I said, if you want to know more about it, go and see Andy’s Adventures on YouTube and you’ll learn a lot from his videos. All right, you take care and it’s it’s good to speak to you. Take care. Bye.