In May/June 2026, APR Administrator Demelza Henderson cycled 1180 miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats in 23 days, visiting 20 retreat houses and leaders along the way!
Read all about her adventures and the wonderful people she met online here, or in this downloadable newsletter.
Demelza hopes to raise at least £5000 for the APR Retreat Bursary Fund with her bike ride. It’s not too late to support her – she will be collecting sponsorship monies until the end of June!
Sponsor Demelza now!
To donate via Paypal, please use the link below
Or if you prefer to donate by cheque or direct bank transfer, please contact Demelza on promoting.retreats@gmail.com for details of how to do this.
If you are able to Gift Aid your donation, and thereby allow us to collect an extra 25p for every pound you give, we would be very grateful if you could also complete this very simple Gift Aid Form. Thank you.
The Route
Travelling with her partner, Ben, Demelza’s route did not follow any standard ‘End-to-End’ route – rather, she connected twenty different APR Member Retreat Houses and Retreat Leaders as she travelled from the most westerly tip of Cornwall to the northernmost tip of Scotland:
- The Haven, Porthcurno, Cornwall
- Epiphany House, Truro, Cornwall
- Tinhay Retreats, Lifton, Devon
- Sheldon Retreat Centre, Devon
- Vanessa Cole (Petite Retreats, Devon)
- Chris Whittington (School of Contemplative Life, Cheltenham)
- Holland House, Worcestershire
- The Greenhouse at Barnes Close, W Midlands
- Reflections Gardens, Staffordshire
- Shallowford House, Staffordshire
- St Chad’s House, Leek, Staffordshire
- The Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, West Yorkshire
- Holy Rood House, Thirsk, North Yorkshire
- St Antony’s Priory, Durham
- Shepherd’s Dene, Northumbria
- Whitchester Christian Centre, Hawick, Borders
- The Bield at Blackruthven, Perth
- St Mary’s Monastery and Retreat, Kinnoull, Perth
- The Coach House, Kilmuir, Inverness
The APR relies on donations and membership subscriptions to continue its work, especially its ability to offer increasing numbers of retreat bursaries in the current challenging financial climate. Thank you for your support!
Route Map
The APR Bursary Fund was established in 2013, to celebrate its centenary; since then, it has supported more than 300 individual retreats.
- The APR Bursary Fund continues to support 60-70 people in financial hardship to go on retreat at APR member houses every year
- In the 2023/2024 financial year, a record £10,000 was spent on retreat bursaries
- In 2024, APR Trustees extended the Scheme to offer no-questions-asked retreat bursaries for teachers, headteachers, teaching assistants and pastoral/welfare support staff in Church of England schools
- For 2 years during the Covid Pandemic, the APR offered retreat bursaries to NHS staff and healthcare workers, contributing to 240 retreats taken at 28 different member retreat houses. Through the generous donations of our members, as well as using APR Reserves, we were able to spend £21,000 on our NHS Bursary Scheme.
- Find our more on the Bursary Scheme page of our website