The English path

The initiative was taken by the Normandy Association of Friends of Saint Jacques and enabled the materialisation and marking of this road.

The new itinerary, which crosses the area from north to south, goes through towns like Anneville-sur-Scie, Auffay and Mont Cauvaire. Once it was marked out between Dieppe and Chartres, pilgrims could reach Evreux, Dreux and finally Chartres where they connected with the Paris-Tours road.

The marking was made in white and red when the road ran communally  with a long-distance hiking trail, and in yellow and blue for other sections. The specific scallop shell sign for the Saint-Jacques trail later completed these markings.

The Normandy trail, sometimes called the Path of The English, named after pilgrims who first crossed the Channel to Dieppe and its Saint Jacques church, runs  through the Pays de Caux.

It follows the Tide Chasers route  between Dieppe and Rouen, which was used by  fishermen and their carts before the arrival of the railways in the middle of the 19th century.

In the Pays  de Caux (Land of Chalk) the Saint Jacques pilgrims’ way is  marked by the important sites of Auffay with its Jacquemarts (mechanised bell-strikers)  and  Mont Cauvaire with its twin bread oven.

Frichemesnil: A small stop between two more important places

Between Auffay and Mont-Cauvaire the trail goes through Frichemesnil. This section is part of the sinuous trail that winds through other small towns such as  Saint Victor l’Abbaye and Clères.

For the ‘Jacquets’ pilgrims, spiritual hikers, the journey is a personal quest, a time for reflection and for meeting other pilgrims. Places like Frichemesnil are a reminder that each little stage of the journey was a precious thread in the rich tapestry of this one thousand year old pilgrimage.

This road links the Normandy coast with the road to Compostelle guaranteeing the perennity of an itinerary that thousands of pilgrims have trod.