Depart for London Heathrow Airport on a scheduled flight from a Washington, DC area airport.

We arrive mid-morning in London, meet our guide and driver, and head west into the British countryside. Our first stop is Salisbury Cathedral, which features England’s tallest spire and largest cloisters, as well as a copy of the Magna Carta. We continue to seaside Plymouth, visiting the Mayflower Steps, where the pilgrim fathers boarded ship for a new life of religious freedom in America. We unpack at our hotel for a two-night stay and share a festive dinner, with time to connect and talk about the sites we will explore together.

We spend today visiting several sites in Cornwall, a scenic region of seaside villages and inland tin mines that the Wesleys made an early focus for evangelistic preaching. We will visit the Wesley Cottage and Museum in Trewint, where local stonemason Digory Isbell and his wife, Elizabeth, built rooms for hosting the Wesleys and other preachers associated with the movement. We will gather for morning worship in the cottage, which is known as the world’s smallest Methodist preaching site. After stopping at a seaside village for lunch, we continue to Gwennap Pit, an open-air amphitheater where John Wesley preached 17 times to crowds of thousands. We end our day with choral evensong at Truro Cathedral, the birthplace of the beloved Christmastide service of Nine Lessons and Carols. We return to our hotel for the night.

The port city of Bristol, an important early center for Wesleyanism, will be today’s focus. En route, we will make a brief stop at Barrington Combe in the Mendip Hills, where a young Augustus Toplady sheltered from a storm. The experience moved him to write one of evangelicalism’s greatest hymns, “Rock of Ages.” The Wesleys were invited to Bristol by their close friend George Whitfield, a fellow preacher of renewal. A walking tour will bring us to a series of sites associated with Whitfield and the Wesleys’ long ministry here. A packed lunch will be provided this day. We end the tour at the New Room, the first Methodist chapel, which also contains a world-class museum tracing the 18th- and 19th-century history of the Methodist movement. We will share a service of Holy Communion in the chapel. One final stop in Bristol is the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, a massive Gothic church with a soaring spire described by Queen Elizabeth I as England’s “fairest parish church.” The building is filled with fine stone carvings and monuments that trace the city’s long association with exploration and sea trade. We continue to our Bristol hotel for a one-night stay.

We depart Bristol for Oxford, the fabled “city of dreaming spires,” where the Wesleys joined with a group of fellow students in forming a “holy club,” whose strong focus on piety and service to the poor is sometimes called “the first rise of Methodism.” Both Wesleys were ordained at Christ Church Cathedral, and John was a tutor for several years at Lincoln College. A walking tour will introduce us to several sites associated with the Wesleys and their companions, like fellow student George Whitfield. The afternoon is free for exploring. Hike across Port Meadow, punt down the River Isis, explore medieval churches and halls, have a pint in one of England’s oldest pubs, or check out a superb assortment of used bookstores. We continue to Lincoln for dinner at our hotel and unpack for a two-night stay

The town of Epworth, near Lincoln, is where the Wesleys’ story begins. We will visit the Old Rectory, the home of the Rev. Samuel and Susanna Wesley and their 19 children, including John and Charles. The rectory is now a museum of the Wesley story. We will also visit St. Andrew’s Church, where the brothers were baptized and first heard the gospel, and where their father was buried in 1735. We return to Lincoln for a tour of its 11th-century cathedral, renowned for its rose windows and masterfully carved angel choir. We finish our visit with a service of choral Evensong before returning to our hotel for dinner.

Today we return south for the final leg of our time together. Our first stop is Olney, one of early evangelicalism’s spiritual centers, where John Newton and William Cowper wrote many beloved hymns, including “Amazing Grace.” We will visit the Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, where Newton preached, and Cowper’s home, now the Newton and Cowper Museum. We continue to Saint Alban’s Cathedral, a massive Norman church built over the burial place of England’s first martyr, who gave his life for Christ in the third century. We continue to our London hotel for dinner and a three-night stay

Today we trace the story of the Wesleys across London, with visits to the site of the meeting hall at Aldersgate where John Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed”; St. Bartholomew the Great, whose pulpit remained open to him amid intense opposition; the Foundery, his home and the first great center for mission work in the capital; and the “New Chapel” at Moorfields, where John Wesley was buried. We end the day with choral Evensong at St.
Paul’s Cathedral, where Wesley often worshiped, and where a prominent monument bears witness to his influence within Anglicanism.

Today is a free day for exploring London, a city full of world-class museums and galleries, impressive churches, beautiful gardens, unique historic sites like Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the Tower of London. Your pilgrimage guides, who both know the city well, will be happy to make recommendations. We share a final festive meal together to mark the close of our pilgrimage.

After breakfast, check out of your hotel and transfer to London’s Heathrow Airport and your flight home.