Wellspring Church

Retreats and quiet days

A day away, mostly in silence, four times a year — and one longer weekend on the hills in June.

You do not need to have done anything like this before, and you do not need to be part of this church, or any church, to come.

This year

Four days away, and one longer one. Book by replying to the office — there is no online system and there does not need to be.

a frosty field with trees and bushes

Advent quiet day

  • Saturday 6 December, 9.30–16.00
  • Morley Retreat House
  • £28 including lunch

A day of mostly silence before the busiest month of the year. Two short talks, a long walk if the weather allows, and a proper cooked lunch in the middle.

Beginners are the point rather than an exception — about half the people who come have never done anything like it. Nobody is asked to speak, share, or sit cross-legged on the floor.

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gray dining chair lot

Lent quiet day

  • Saturday 28 February, 9.30–16.00
  • Morley Retreat House
  • £28 including lunch

The same shape as Advent, in a colder and emptier landscape, which turns out to suit it. Led by a member of the congregation rather than by clergy.

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2 men walking on rocky field during daytime

The walking weekend

  • Friday 12 – Sunday 14 June
  • Edale, Peak District
  • £95 · bursaries, no questions asked

Two nights in a bunkhouse, three walks graded so that nobody is left behind, and one long evening of the kind of conversation that does not happen in seventy-five minutes on a Sunday.

Families come; so do people on their own. If the cost is the thing stopping you, say so on the form and it will quietly be dealt with.

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What a quiet day is actually like

Because "retreat" means very different things to different people.

  1. 9.30 — coffee, and the only compulsory talking of the day. Names, where the WCs are, when lunch is.
  2. 10.00 — a talk, twenty minutes. One idea, not a syllabus.
  3. 10.30 to 13.00 — silence. Walk, sleep, read, sit in the garden. There is no right way to do this and nobody is watching.
  4. 13.00 — lunch, talking again. Cooked, at a long table, and generally the bit people remember.
  5. 14.30 — a second talk, then silence until tea.
  6. 16.00 — tea, cake, and home.

No phones is a suggestion, not a rule. Nobody confiscates anything.