We’re thrilled to bring you an evening of pilgrimage and place writing with authors Jake Morris-Campbell and Kathryn Hurlock, who will be discussing their new books BETWEEN THE SALT AND THE ASH: A Journey Into the Soul of Northumbria and HOLY PLACES: How Pilgrimage Changed the World.

Jake and Kathryn will be in conversation with the Revd. Professor Peter Scott.

About the books:

BETWEEN THE SALT AND THE ASH: After inheriting the miner’s safety lamp that belonged to his great-grandfather, Jake Morris-Campbell sets out on a pilgrimage across his homeland.

Travelling from the Holy Island of Lindisfarne to Durham Cathedral, he asks what new ways might be made through the old north. This region, a hub of early Christian Britain and later strongly defined by industry and class, now faces an uncertain future. But it remains a unique and starkly beautiful part of the country, with a deep history that is intimately entwined with the idea of Englishness.

Jake’s journey along the ‘Camino of the North’ sees him explore the shifting nature of individual and regional identity across thirteen-hundred years of social change. At the same time, it challenges him to reconsider his own calling as a writer and how it relates to the lives of the people he meets along the way. BETWEEN THE SALT AND THE ASH asks what stories the North East can tell about itself in the wake of Christianity and coal.

HOLY PLACES: This year, as they have for millennia, many people around the world will set out on pilgrimages. But these are not only journeys of personal and spiritual devotion – they are also political acts, affirmations of identity and engagements with deep-rooted historical narratives.

Kathryn Hurlock follows the trail of pilgrimage through nineteen sacred sites – from the temples of Jerusalem to the banks of the Ganges, by way of Iona, Lourdes, Amritsar and Buenos Aires – revealing the many ways in which this ancient practice has shaped our religions and our world. Pilgrimages have transformed the fates of cities, anointed dynasties, provided guidance in hard times and driven progress in good.

Filled with fascinating insights, Holy Places unveils the complex histories and contemporary endurance of one of our most fundamental human urges.

About the authors:

Jake Morris-Campbell was born in South Shields in 1988. His collection of poetry Corrigenda for Costafine Town (2021) was longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. A BBC New Generation Thinker, he regularly appears on Radio 3. Recent commissions include writing for the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition at The Laing Gallery, Newcastle and for the After Dark Festival at The Glasshouse, Gateshead. He is co-editor of Marratide: Selected Poems of William Martin (2025) and currently works as Teaching Fellow in Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University.

Kathryn Hurlock is Head of the History Research Centre and Reader in Medieval History at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is a religious historian, whose work focuses on how people have engaged in major religious activities from the middle ages to the present day. She is the author of Wales and the Crusades, (2011) Britain, Ireland and the Crusades, (2013) and Medieval Welsh Pilgrimage (2018), among others. She has featured on BBC Breakfast and You’re Dead To Me and has written for the Independent and the New European.