Britain's ten most sacred sites

Rievaulx Abbey has retained its grandeur London - Arabstoday Seeking more than a mountain of chocolate from this Easter weekend? From Canterbury Cathedral (where Thomas Becket was murdered) to Iona in the Inner Hebrides and St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, Martin Symington draws up a list of Britain's most sacred sites. Rievaulx Abbey, North Yorkshire ‘Everywhere peace, everywhere serenity, and a marvellous freedom from the tumult of the world’. So wrote young Aelred, future abbot of Rievaulx, of the Cistercian monastery in 1134. Arriving at this hauntingly beautiful place on a bend in the River Rye in North Yorkshire today, it is almost impossible not to share those initial, 900-year-old impressions. The abbey is now a ruin in the care of English Heritage, but so much remains of the building that it is possible to picture some realities of medieval monastic life. Swoop in on the costumed medieval falconry show this weekend (7-9 April). Durham Cathedral, County Durham First-time visitors will be seduced by Durham. Writer and confirmed Anglophile Bill Bryson declared: ‘I unhesitatingly gave Durham my vote for the best cathedral on planet Earth’. But would this place have the same capacity to bewitch body and soul were it not for the Venerable Bede and St Cuthbert? The former’s tomb is at the west end, while the latter’s shrine is beyond the high altar by the Chapel of the Nine Altars. The chapel has a powerful aura that leaves few unmoved. There could be nowhere more uplifting on Easter Sunday - there are three services. Walsingham, Norfolk This flinty north Norfolk village was one of the greatest Marian shrines in medieval Christendom, the Lourdes of its time. The story started in 1061 with Richeldis de Faverches seeing visions of the Virgin Mary. However, what seems truly miraculous is the way in which the phenomenon was regenerated in the 20th century. Today, more than 300,000 a year descend on Walsingham, in what Anglican Shrine Administrator Bishop Lindsay Unwin describes as: ‘…swimming against the tide, in a sort of gentle protest against the secular world’. Canterbury Cathedral, Kent The nave of Canterbury Cathedral is the crowning glory of English Gothic, as befits the core of the nation’s spiritual life. But the soul of the place is the bare north-west transept, because this is where Thomas Becket was martyred. The very spot where he died is marked with a frightening sculpture of the murder weapons. Next to a single candle, a simple inscription etched into the stone floor reads: The shrine of Thomas Becket Archbishop and Martyr stood here from 1220 until 1538. For something less lofty and more chocolatey, hit the town for a giant Easter egg hunt. Hunts start at 10 from Canterbury Audio Tours and cost £3 per child - until 15 April, (01227 767 543, www.canterburyaudiotours.co.uk). Glastonbury, Somerset The mystical associations with this Somerset market town are numerous, as are the varying beliefs that this is a place of ‘spiritual energy’. In ‘Jerusalem!’ William Blake alludes to the legend that Jesus came here. St. Joseph of Arimathea is believed to have hidden the Holy Grail in the Chalice Well at the foot of the 500-foot Tor, and King Arthur and Guinevere’s remains are said to lie among the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey. As G.K. Chesterton noted: ‘In Glastonbury, as in all noble and human things, the myth is more important than the history.’ This year the Fringe Festival takes place from 21 June to 1 July and will includes theatre, music, song and dance (www.glastonbury-fringe.org.uk). St Michael's Mount, West Cornwall If you spot a figure walking on water as you gaze out at the castle-crowned hunk of rock offshore from Marazion, look again. It is probably just that the sea has sunk to the level of a causeway connecting the tidal island to south Cornwall. All the same, St. Michael’s Mount has been a holy place since the Middle Ages when a chapel was built on the spot where a group of fishermen saw a vision of the Archangel Michael. On Sunday there are sights to behold of a different kind with face painting, egg and spoon races, a bouncy castle and Easter egg trail around the village and harbour. St David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire If size mattered, Britain’s smallest city would count for little. St. David’s, out at the western extremity of Pembrokeshire, has a population of barely 1,700 and an undersized cathedral to match. However, on March 1st this year a newly-restored shrine to the patron saint of Wales was unveiled, with icons and painted canopy. He clearly has plans for the city named in his honour to play again in the premier league of holy places. And on the subject of honours, just down the road the Solva Duck Race is fiercely contested on Easter Monday. Bardsey Island, North Wales Monks of the early Celtic churches first settled on this far-flung island off North Wales’s Llyn peninsula in the 5th century, seeking refuge from persecution. Bardsey still feels remote as well as deeply spiritual, with day trip crossings from Aberdaron in summer subject to whims of weather and tide - a place to unwind as well as rewind through the ages. You can discover more history at Plas yn Rhiw Manor House, down the road from Aberdaron. While you feed your minds, littler ones can feast on something sweeter at the Easter Egg Hunt today and tomorrow. Whithorn, Dumfries & Galloway The story of Scottish Christianity begins with St. Ninian landing on a beach near the Isle of Whithorn in AD397, from where he set about converting the locals. The isle is now joined to the Dumfries and Galloway mainland by a causeway, and is a fishing village where modern pilgrims add a smooth sea stone to a commemorative ‘Witness Cairn’. Many climb a grassy bank behind the harbour to St. Ninian’s Chapel, and follow a pathway to leave votive crosses at St. Ninian’s Cave, said to be his retreat. For something less energetic catch the Easter epic Ben Hur in HD at St Ninian’s Hall Cinema at 6.30pm. Iona, Inner Hebrides Rev George Macleod, founder of the ecumenical Iona Community, described Iona as ‘a thin place, with only a tissue separating the material from the spiritual’. People are drawn to this beautiful green three mile-long Hebridean speck off Mull where St Columba lived and prayed, on a medley of spiritual quests. Maybe it is that thinness they are after – something Iona appears to have had forever.