A December Pilgrimage

The Friends of Little Gidding

Founded in 1946 by Alan Maycock, the Friends of Little Gidding organized for over thirty years an annual pilgrimage and raised funds for the maintenance of the church at Little Gidding. One of the original members was T.S. Eliot, whose poem entitled Little Gidding helped to renew interest in the place and its history. Alan Maycock looked forward to community life being restored to Little Gidding.

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In the 1970s a trust was founded to buy the farm house as the start of a new community and as a place of retreat. This community grew to become the Society of Christ the Sower, an ecumenical religious community for married and single people. The Friends became attached to the Society of Christ the Sower. The community was dissolved in 1998, and for a while the Friends fell into abeyance, having lost their administration.

In 2003 the Society of the Friends of Little Gidding was re-established. Ferrar House is owned by the Little Gidding Trust, and the Church is the responsibility of the Parochial Church Council. The Friends co-operate with these two bodies, and with the T S Eliot Society, in maintaining and enhancing the buildings and use of Little Gidding, and remembering the life of Nicholas Ferrar and his successors.

Before his death Nicholas Ferrar said to his community: ‘It is the right, good old way you are in; keep in it.’ These words remain the aspirations of the Friends of Little Gidding, and all those who love the place.

The Society’s objects are:

  1. the advancement of religion, and in particular:
    1. to give thanks to almighty God for the holy lives and examples of Nicholas Ferrar and those who shared his life at Little Gidding,
    2. to venerate his memory and to honour those ideals of Christian family life of which Little Gidding formed so perfect a pattern,
    3. to take a practical and active interest in the care, upkeep and adornment of the church at Little Gidding and its precincts,
    4. to arrange, as occasion provides, for visits and pilgrimages to Little Gidding, and in any other ways that may be deemed fitting, to preserve the sense of Little Gidding as a holy place, from which the sanctity can never depart,
    5. to assist and support the provision of accommodation and facilities for pilgrims and other visitors to come to, visit, or stay at Little Gidding.
  2. to advance the education of the public in the life of Nicholas Ferrar at Little Gidding and also the connection of T.S. Eliot with Little Gidding.

Join the Friends of Little Gidding and connect to this living, historic, dispersed but connected community, through the World Wide Web of the internet.

Downloadlink a Membership Form and (for UK taxpayers) a Gift Aid certificate and send it to

The Membership Secretary
Friends of Little Gidding
Ferrar House
Little Gidding
Huntingdon
PE28 5RJ

For more information on Little Giddinglink, the Friends of Little Giddinglink and Ferrar Houselink see www.littlegiddingchurch.org.uklink and www.ferrarhouse.co.uklink.