A CHURCH musician hopes to make it into Guinness World Records after taking just 22 days to complete a pilgrimage around all 61 Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals in mainland England.

The musician, Stuart Whatton, undertook the pilrimage to mark his 50th birthday. He attended a service in each of the 42 Anglican churches, and lit a candle in all of 19 RC ones.

"I had done the Camino de Santiago, and the happy memories of that made me think what I might do for my 50th," he said. "But the actual trigger was when I attended a choral conference in Lincoln. On the final day, I attended choral evensong, and I had arranged to see a friend at Southwell later that day, and managed to catch choral evensong there a couple of hours later. I thought how clever that was."

At first he planned to drive to all the UK's Anglican cathedrals, but then limited himself to mainland England. He added the RC ones "to make it more of a challenge". "I plan to turn it into an illustrated talk, and put it on the net. I am told 22 days is a record; so I will be filling in all the paperwork. I hope to get into the Guinness book of records."

Mr Whatton, director of music at Christ Church, Esher, with St George's, West End, Surrey, started, like Chaucer's pilgrims, at Southwark and finished at Canterbury. "I made it a rule that I had to get my pilgrimage book signed at every place. I have amassed quite a good collection of Deans' signatures.

"At the Catholic cathedrals, it was more of a random assortment: at Arundel, it was a someone doing an art exhibition, and at Liverpool, it was nearly a security officer, because it was closing; but he took me round the corner to find a nun, who was most helpful."

Along the way, he picked up parking tickets in Birmingham and Derby, a flat tyre in Liverpool, and narrowly avoided spending the night in his car. He stayed mainly with friends, but also used hotels."I used late-booking websites, and rarely paid more than £40 a night," he said. "In all, I drove 3025 miles. Hiring the car cost £379; fuel was the single biggest cost, at up to £80 a tankful."

He graded each cathedral for exterior, interior, setting, warmth of welcome, and sense of spirituality. The overall winners were York Minster and Hereford.