Chesterfield’s Whit Walk is Back!

Monday 29 May

After an enforced absence of three years, Chesterfield churches’ colourful Spring Bank Holiday Monday Procession of Witness is on again. Bands are booked and preparations are underway.

This year’s theme, following the Coronation earlier in the month will be “King of Kings”.

The event will begin at 9:45 am with an open-air service on Rose Hill. The Walk is scheduled to commence around 10:15 am led by the Mayoral party. This year, the route has been changed to bring the event to a wider audience, through the Market Place and along Vicar Lane, returning to the town hall via Burlington Street and High Street for the closing ceremony. Rose Hill URC church will be open for refreshments.

In the church calendar, Whitsuntide is the festival that celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit in power upon the disciples of Jesus at the Jewish feast of Pentecost. Their subsequent witness for Christ spread throughout the known world. The Procession is a symbolic “going out into the world” by the local churches in memory of the event that was, in essence, the birth of the Christian Church.

The Walk is held on Spring Bank Holiday Monday because it is the nearest British public holiday to Whitsuntide. This year it happens to fall on the 29 May, which coincides with the weekend of both the festival and the 200th anniversary of the URC church at Rose Hill which has supported the event since the Walk began 173 years ago. After two years of Covid and a further year with no Bank Holiday Monday at all, it is good to be able to celebrate again and bring a little hope and happiness to dispel some of the gloom of recent times.

Words: David Botham (President of Christian Education, Chesterfield)