PILGRIM ROUTES IN SCOTLAND

The past 20 years has seen an explosion of public interest in outdoor pilgrimage travel across Europe which has attracted considerable press and media coverage, chiefly focused on the Camino route to Santiago de Compostela across northern Spain now walked by over 300,000 people each year. Recognising growing interest in Scotland’s own outdoor pilgrimage heritage, in 2012 the ACTS Scottish Churches Rural Group launched a ‘Pilgrimage Routes Across Scotland’ manifesto in the Scottish Parliament and successfully hosted a one-day conference in Edinburgh on ‘Pilgrimage Today’. This led to the formation of a national SPRF management group whose rapid progress enabled SPRF to be established as a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) in 2014. 

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Currently four pilgrim routes are accredited Scottish Pilgrim Ways™ and a further seven routes are recognised and publicised by SPRF. Factual summaries of all of these are provided, including website links, and each of these routes has a local Steering Group responsible for its promotion, interpretation and collaboration with Councils on maintenance and signage.

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Two other pilgrim routes, the Dalriada Way and Deeside Way, are walkable but currently lack this level of local support and information. 

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