Cyclists gather outside St Michael’s Church in Coxwold, North Yorkshire, before a Service of Remembrance which has taken place annually since the 1920s. This year’s service is on the 8th May.
Photo: Graeme Holdsworth (Twitter: @balancingonmy_).
This is a special longest running cycling church service and coming up in May 2016. One of only two remaining Cyclists’ Church Services in the UK reaches a milestone at 1:30pm on Sunday 8th May 2016, with 300+ cyclists, including the Bishop of Selby, expected in the North Yorkshire village of Coxwold for the 90th annual Service of Remembrance.
The Coxwold service started in the years after the First World War, as one of over 200 such services across the UK established by cycling groups to honour fallen colleagues and to celebrate the safe return of fellow riders.
By the 1960s many of these had dwindled away and today, aside from Coxwold, there is just one similar surviving Cyclists’ Memorial Service, held annually in Meriden, near Coventry. Both events have seen something of a revival in recent years as the popularity of cycling has increased.
Some 90 years since it started, around 300 cyclists are expected to come to Coxwold, a picturesque village around 20 miles north of York, to join the 2016 Service of Remembrance at St. Michaels Church. The Bishop of Selby, The Reverend Canon Dr John Thomson, a cyclist himself, will be the guest preacher at the 45 minute service.
Many participants ride to the service from miles around, in groups or alone, while others whose long-distance years are behind them often ride just a short way through the village to the service itself.
Local branches of the Cyclists’ Touring Club arrange rides to the Service from Hull, York, Leeds, Malton and Teesside, and other cycling clubs often attend, too. Local residents and visitors are also most welcome. Refreshments, in the form of a home made food mountain and gallons of tea, are on sale at the Village Hall from 11AM, and after the service.
One of the organisers, Judy Webb, adds “it is a very special village, a special church and a wonderful service”. Judy also comments on the history of the service starting in 1927 by its then Vicar, the Rev Gibson Black, after a chance meeting in the village with two passing cyclists from Teeside. In the early days the church was apparently filled to overflowing, with a loudspeaker relaying the service to those who arrived late and could not get in. The chuch itself dates from C1430, although there is reputed to have been a place of worship on the site since AD700.
Judy also adds that the service always start with the same hymn ‘To Be Pilgrim’ and “it’s an intensely moving moment and the highlight of my year.”
The Coxwold Cyclists’ Service of Remembrance is a colourful, characterful and very British traditional event which has been respectfully carrying on the solemn tradition of Remembrance for almost a century. All are most welcome in Coxwold on the 8th of May for the 90th anniversary service.
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