Water for Pilgrims
Drinking water
Your body needs at least two litres of drinking water per day while walking. Three is better. Tea and coffee don’t count, as caffeinated drinks are astringent and will dry you out. Be sure to drink deeply before you sleep, and when you wake. Drink every time you stop to rest. Just drink. Water flushes your kidneys, which helps to filter the toxins from your diet and environment. It is a miracle substance that makes everything work better.
However, because we are largely made of water, it is very easy to get terribly ill from just a little bad water. This can effectively stop your pilgrimage journey. I have pushed through it once, and been stopped in my tracks once. Neither time was much fun. I heartily recommend avoiding this. The problems from drinking dirty water can linger long beyond your journey.
Washing Water
You need water to wash your hands and body, and to wash dishes after eating. This can be tap water, or purified wild water. It is important to remember that wild water, even if you are not drinking it, still needs to be purified for all uses, whether washing dishes, hands, or brushing teeth
Holy Water
Some pilgrims make water their destination, for example to river sources, confluences (where two rivers join), springs or holy wells.
There are many holy wells around Britain. You can find out about them on this brilliant Facebook group: In Search of Holy Wells and Healing Wells. Some people say a hoy well is defined by a historical religious tradition. I’m of a mind that regards all natural springs and water sources as potentially holy. I suppose it depends whether you believe ‘holy’ denotes a living tradition or a historic designation?
There are a number of traditions I recommend at holy water sites.
First, make physical contact. Put your hands in, feel and listen. What arrives in your body and mind?
Second, offer a gift. Song or silence work well. Please don’t leave behind an item that will pollute the space, like nylon ribbons. There is a very ancient ‘clootie’ tradition in Britain, whereby cloth from an injured bodypart was tied near a holy well, with the hope that as it rotted, so the injury would disappear. But these days, people dangle all sorts of never-rotting fabrics up, nylon and polyester, like crazy Christmas trees, which is harmful to the water and its wildlife. Please don’t do this.
Tealight candles are another harmful ‘gift’ - as are modern coins, which contain copper and nickel and pollute the water source.
A good physical gifts to leave behind is a single hair. It contains your full DNA, and is completely ‘you’, yet will break down and disappear quickly.
I sometimes offer water pure silver, a very traditional gift at British water sites. It’s not easy to find this - sterling silver is 7.5% non-silver, and as such can pollute - but ‘fine’ silver is 99.9% pure, and is incredibly stable and non-polluting. Giving silver to wells and springs is adding value to Britain - putting the treasure back in. But it’s quite expensive.
If you want to sing a song to a holy well, I wrote this one. The Guardian called it a “Medieval water song”.
One other tradition for holy wells/springs/sources is to look for the Well Maiden. In Arthurian myth, this was the innate spirit of the well, who should be honoured in order to acquire the blessings of the water. The Well Maiden could take any form, animal or human. So when you find a water source, look out for resident life, and be sure to offer polite greetings to those living there. The Well Maiden has the power to grant wellness or disease…
Tap Water
In the UK, all mains tap water is potable (drinking quality). That makes it quite easy to source water while Wayfaring.
Pubs are usually happy to fill a reservoir if requested. You will need to buy a drink though, so this is not always good value.
Most churches feature a tap for gardeners. Sometimes these are quite well concealed, and occasionally they have been made inaccessible by removal of the handle or other tactics, to prevent waste. Cemeteries also usually offer a tap, as do allotments.
Carrying Water
An easily accessible water bottle helps you to drink regularly. There are many kinds available. I would recommend avoiding aluminium, due to questions over its health impact. Steel is durable, and can be used on a fire if required. Glass is pleasant but heavy and delicate.
You will also sometimes need to carry larger amounts of water, such as for cooking, or in places where water is otherwise hard to acquire. Coldharbouring needs water for washing and drinking, at night and in the morning. I recommend a flexible water reservoir for this purpose. These often come with drinking tubes to allow you to drink on the go, without using a bottle. I don’t really like drinking from plastic, but it is the lightest way to carry large volumes of water.
Try to fill your reservoir as close to night time as possible, and avoid lugging litres of water around all day if it is possible rather to refill along the way.
There are many brands of ‘hydration bladder’ available. Camelbak and Platypus are very well-established brands, and reliable manufacturers. You can pay (quite a lot) less for a generic brand, but you really don’t want your water containers to burst at the seams, or to taste horrifically plasticated.
It is also recommended to regularly clean out your water reservoir (before/after pilgrimage, no need during). Use a Milton tablet and give it a good shake.
If you are in need of water, another option is to knock at houses and ask. I have never been turned down for water. Even if you can see a tap in someone’s garden, always ask first. You may make a new friend, or win a cup of tea!
In agricultural areas, look out for animal drinking toughs. They are also filled by mains water. There are two compartments in a drinking trough - the animals’ one, and the cleaner infill section which is typically sealed off. You can usually open up the infill section, and the stopcock inside to make fresh mains water flow. Be sure to fill your bottle carefully to prevent contaminating it with the sitting water. Even a few drips on the rim can cause trouble.
Drinking Wild Water
I try to avoid tap water while on pilgrimage. With a bit of planning and carrying, you can go a very long way without drinking mains water at all.
Forever before 120 years ago, all our water was from wells and springs. This infrastructure of water created the human layout of Britain, the core architecture of our towns and villages. We have forgotten these old hearts of our landscape with alarming swiftness. Today’s inconvenient puddle was once the most important part of a settlement, and the whole reason people lived somewhere for thousands of years.
Purifying Wild Water
As a rule of thumb, wells are usually human made, whereas springs are natural outpourings of water from geological faults. But the both terms ‘spring’ and ‘well’ are pretty much used interchangeably, as often ancient springs were given stone housings and took on the appearance of wells. You typically find a spring at a boundary between land-types, for example where a hill meets a plain. Not all springs are deep earth water, as many are supplemented by groundwater from recent rainfall, and are known as land-drains.
Some springs are also river sources. These are my favourites - the birthplaces of mighty waterways. It is incredible to see how small they begin. These are also very effective places to offer blessings, as your gift shall flow all the way to the sea…
Because Britain has been inhabited for so long, with some rather questionable environmental decisions, it is best to veer toward caution when drinking wild water - especially in the lowlands. As mentioned earlier, I have got incredibly ill from drinking water that I filtered insufficiently, and it is a serious hit to the system, and not to be recommended in any way.
If you are going to drink wild water, especially in the lowlands, you should almost always purify it. This will prevent illness. While it is quite easy to buy water filters, which are often attractively tiny and lightweight devices, I have more than once had such filters fail on me. So these days, I always use a purifier instead.
Purifiers are far more stringent in their limiting of what gets through. The typical difference is that a filter will take out bacteria and sediment, while a purifier also removes viruses (which are very small).
It is also worth considering the modern risk of chemicals and dissolved solids, which are harder to remove from water. Very few purifiers will remove all chemicals and heavy metals. It is simply not possible in a portable device. For this reason, try to avoid drinking water from streams and lakes beside arable fields that are heavily sprayed (which is most of them).
That being said, the simplest option for pilgrimage is probably the Grayl purifier.
This purifier is built into a water bottle, is lightweight and simple, and removes viruses & bacteria. Each push purifies 710ml of water. You fill the lower container with dirty water, then push the top section down. The water is squeezed through the element, and when you unscrew the top you have clean water in a sealable drinking bottle. This is not the easiest method, but it certainly works. The Grayl also removes ‘some’ dissolved chemicals and heavy metals, which is more than most devices. The Geopress purifies 250L of water per replaceable element. It gets harder to use when the filter needs replacing.
Please note - the advertised weight is for a Grayl when dry, which is only the first time you use it. Afterward, they always keep some water in the element and increase in weight ever after. This is true for all water purifiers.
Another option is a tubed pump purifier. These are typically larger, heavier and higher capacity devices. Pump action purifiers with tubes allow you to reach more distant water more easily, without having to get down there and scoop it out manually as with the Grayl.
The purifier I use is the MSR Guardian, which is heavier and 4x the price! But it offers purification for 10,000L of water. And weight often connotes durability…
A reliable classic water purifier is the First Need XLE Elite (by General Ecology) - as seen in the film Wild. This is an American tried and tested classic, but only offers 800L of clean water per cartridge.
One final option is the Pure Clear filter systems, which are soft bottles with a built in purification element. This makes them ultralight, as well as being remarkably cheap! Well worth a look…
Drink well, wash well, and walk well!
