St James and scallop shells

Scallop shells are an important part of the life of St James’s Piccadilly. We give them to people who arrive and depart, we share them with people who are baptised in our font, and many of our discussion and community-building groups are named Camino Groups, inspired by the Santiago de Compostella pilgrim routes and the traditions of St James’s as pilgrim and follower of Jesus. This year’s Baptism and Confirmation group each received a blessed scallop shell as a sign of their journey with God. I treasure the shell I was given when I arrived as your Associate Rector on St James’s Day in 2022. It’s in my study at church, and I have a little ritual: each day when I arrive, I look at the shell and pray for our parish and for all of you who are part of St James’s around the world.

The scallop shell has become so closely associated with pilgrimage that it can seem almost decorative. They are part of the glorious carvings by Grinling Gibbons above the altar, surrounded by pearls, abalone, and conch shells.  Scallops are a delicacy, too (admittedly, they’re one of my favourite foods!) Some of our shells have come from the caterers St James’s works with for our fundraising events. A special shell delivery is going to be part of their visit to Feast at St James’s on a Monday evening, creating another meaningful link between our communities and life together. At St James’s we talk about being ‘rooted in God’s earth’, and these shells are part of that story too. They are a symbol of journeys and hospitality, of baptism and resurrection, of the apostle James, and of the countless generations of pilgrims whose faith has shaped the churches, collections, and landscapes we continue to cherish.

St James ‘the Great’ (called this because he was an Apostle in the New Testament – the OG St James) occupies a distinctive place in the Christian imagination. One of Christ’s closest disciples, alongside Peter and John, he witnessed the Transfiguration and kept watch in the Garden of Gethsemane. His death is described in the Acts of the Apostles. He was among the first in our tradition to die because of his faith. We wear red on St James’s Day as a way to thank St James, and to thank God for his witness to the Gospel, which inspires us. He is a saint who boldly told the truth and who risked everything for the love of God and the Spirit’s grace.

It was the development of medieval tradition that transformed James into one of Europe’s most beloved saints. According to ancient legend, his relics were carried to Galicia, where they were rediscovered in the ninth century. Around his pilgrim shrine grew Santiago de Compostela, one of medieval Christendom’s great pilgrimage destinations alongside Jerusalem, Canterbury, and Rome. As they do now, pilgrims made the journey across rough terrain and through small communities. The pilgrims travel with their unique stories, homes, and languages, in search of prayer, peace, community, and renewal. Many are surprised by how transformative a pilgrimage can be.

The scallop shell became the defining emblem of this extraordinary journey. Medieval writers delighted in legends explaining its origins, while practical realities also shaped its significance. Pilgrims returning from Galicia carried shells gathered on the Atlantic coast as proof that they had reached the shrine. Its radiating grooves express the many routes converging upon one sacred destination. Those same lines spread outwards from a single point, reminding us that pilgrimage does not end at one destination, but continues as a life transformed, flowing towards God’s eternal life for all. Life itself is a pilgrimage.

London preserves remarkable traces of this history. The Museum of London holds a collection of medieval pilgrim souvenirs, including numerous scallop badges from Santiago de Compostela. People set out from London centuries ago, carrying these badges along with their shells, and these would have been treasured not just as a memory, but as a holy item connecting them directly to St James and to God. Among them is a small fifteenth-century lead-alloy badge discovered at Butler’s Wharf in Bermondsey. Other badges depict the apostle himself standing within the shell, dressed as a pilgrim with staff and cloak. He is often dressed as both saint and traveller. Generation by generation, these shells gradually became a universal emblem of pilgrimage itself. When you see someone with a scallop shell, they may well be fellow-travellers on life’s sacred road.

This language of pilgrimage also survives in sculpture. Among the treasures of the Victoria and Albert Museum is a medieval sculpture in which St James has all his classic symbols, so that we know it’s him: James has the pilgrim’s staff, travelling cloak, and, of course, shells. This is a fragment of an alabaster altarpiece which was probably made in Nottinghamshire for a church in Zamora, in Spain. Many of these carvings, made in England, were part of the trade routes stretching throughout Europe, including to Santiago de Compostella. Images of St James with his pilgrim symbols invited viewers to imagine themselves as pilgrims too, reminding them that life as a Christian is a continual journey with God.

In churches across the world, scallop shells are used to pour water during baptism. As we baptise people of every age and background in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, celebrating their name and their life with God and in community, the shell I a key symbol of a journey that flows through all that lives and has lived. The shell, associated with water, nourishment, practical human need, and mystical divine presence, becomes an eloquent sacramental item, holding and pouring out the holy water through which Christians are welcomed into the Body of Christ.

The shell’s layered meanings remind us that Christian symbols rarely possess only one interpretation. It is at once an emblem of the sea, of creation, of St James, of pilgrimage, of hospitality, and of baptismal rebirth

These small shells, a gift from our fragile and beautiful oceans, can give us a glimpse of God’s glory in everyday continuity. It links liturgy with landscape, art with devotion, and history with contemporary practice. Every shell carved into stone, cast in lead, or lifted above a font reminds us that Christianity has always understood faith as movement: a journey undertaken in hope, sustained by grace, and shared with fellow travellers. These simple shells and those who hold them and pray with them are part of a Christian visual theology.  They’re small enough to hold in our hand, like the bread we bless, break, and give to everyone in the Eucharist. They are also expansive enough to encompass the whole pilgrimage of the Christian life, as St James and God travel with us as steadfast holy guides.