OUT & ABOUT
BAKEWELL BUSINESSWOMAN BRINGS GUIDED
PILGRIMAGES TO DERBYSHIRE
This year’s National Heritage Open Week theme may be architecture, but Tideswell’s ‘Cathedral of the Peak’ will be offering more than a building tour this September; as new minister Rev Fiona Kouble and local guide Faye Smith have teamed up to bring guided pilgrimages to this beautiful part of the world. Fiona Stubbs reports.
G
OTHIC masterpiece, St John the Baptist Church at Tideswell, is ‘mother’ to another three churches and sister to another parish church
in Wormhill, all opening their doors to pilgrims and visitors alike in Heritage Week, September 12 to 21. “We were already aware of local church communities Faye and the Rev Fiona outside Wormhill Church.
84 Reflections September 2025
Pilgrim guide Faye Smith.
creating some outstanding marketing and PR practice long-distance self-guided Faye founded six years pilgrimages around the county, ago – following the tragic such as the Hope and Peak deaths of her husband and Pilgrimages and the Peak daughter a few years before – a Wesleyan Way,” says Rev relationship breakdown and the Fiona, and my predecessor had death of her father just as the asked a church member who pandemic struck was the final was a keen walker to create a straw for her mental health. day pilgrimage route around Faye became so unwell, the five churches in Tideswell she joined a unique specialist benefice a couple of years ago: trauma recovery community Cressbrook, in coastal Kent Litton, for a sabbatical. Miller’s Dale ““IT WAS THE BEST Initially she was and Wormhill. to stay for six THING I COULD There months, but due wasn’t the to the pandemic HAVE DONE,” resource and the benefits, FAYE RECALLS. to promote Faye stayed for it, so when over two years. Faye joined “It was the the church fresh from walking best thing I could have done,” the world-famous Camino Faye recalls. “Alongside the to Santiago in northern psychotherapeutic trauma Spain last autumn, they recovery techniques I was discussed the idea of formally learning, during lockdown I launching the 8.5-mile discovered the healing power pilgrimage along the same of long-distance walking and lines, with a pilgrim passport swimming. The result was and badge of completion. a business I called ‘Hope “Our wardens were all keen, Walking’, which I launched as I so national Heritage Open moved out after a lifetime living Week in September this year in Sheffield to the Peak District seemed like the perfect time to over two years ago now.” launch our Parish Pilgrimage.” Faye has since guided Now a trained walk pilgrimages as diverse as the leader, pilgrimage guide and World Heritage site around bereavement befriender, it’s Canterbury Cathedral, and the a world away from running Pilgrim’s Way along the North the busy Sheffield charity Down. She has spoken widely To advertise call 01246 550488