Richard Rolle - provocative Yorkshire saint

Spending a couple of nights at Doncaster’s Travelodge near Hampole brought me back to my roots in more sense than one. The occasion was visiting friends and family in my native Doncaster and the churches I served in Bentley and Moorends. It was also an opportunity to connect with the faith of the church through the ages through a mile’s walk down from the busy A1(M) to a quiet hamlet. Hampole is writ large in Christian history on account of its mystic Richard Rolle (c1300-1349) commemorated 20 January in the Church of England. The hamlet has a commemorative column but little otherwise resonant of the saint save the stream by the site of his hermitage with tranquillity impacted by the London to Leeds railway crossing it. ‘My King that water gret (wept) and blood sweat sithen full sare bet (after being beaten) so that his blood him wet when their scourges met’ Richard Rolle (c1300-1349) wrote possibly looking at this same Hampole stream (picture), now crossed by the London-Le