“The Canterbury Tales” — the collection of poems that every English major has to read — is the ultimate travel story. Winter’s over, spring has sprung, “thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages” — as Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in Middle English in the 14th century.
People are still tramping the same general path from points around London, eastward toward the spired vision that is Canterbury Cathedral and sometimes beyond along the Pilgrims’ Way.
Today, the Pilgrims’ Way is a series of public footpaths, bridle ways and paved lanes that parallels and sometimes coincides with a national trail, the North Downs Way, created in a post-World War II effort to get urban people into the countryside.
The precise route of the medieval Catholic pilgrims is not certain, but human feet have walked the same route along a chalk escarpment that runs between the English Channel and the British heartland for millenniums, since long before Christianity. Druidic standing stones along the way attest to lost traditions and meaning that even prehistoric peoples attached to the route.
Today, guides lead pilgrimages on secular and spiritual walks that last a full week and include a variety of lodging from inns to sleeping on church floors. Or you can grab a guidebook, download an app and meander on foot, car or bike on self-guided treks, taking the route in a week or in separate segments over weeks or months.
Besides the churches, cathedrals and holy wells, the way is alive with secular history. Jane Austen’s home is on the path, and nearby at various points are the homes of Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin; the famous gardens at Sissinghurst, home of Virginia Woolf’s lover Vita Sackville-West; and Chevening House, designed by the architect Inigo Jones in the 17th century and now the country residence of the British foreign secretary.
In May, along with a friend, I hopscotched my way along the pilgrimage route, moving generally from west to east, hitting the major sites. Because we were short on time, we added biking — and riding in an antique British car — to the usual hiking to create a modern Pilgrims’ Way.
Day 1: Winchester to St. Martha-on-the-Hill
The British Pilgrimage Trust offers walkers a Pilgrim Passport to fill with stamps from churches, pubs and other way stations. I got my first stamp at the awe-inspiring Winchester Cathedral, built between the 11th and 15th centuries, where some pilgrims start their walks. Beneath Gothic arches in the north transept, the Pilgrim’s Steps are grooved by the feet — and knees — of medieval pilgrims who once lined up to crawl down into a passage to get close to the buried bones of St. Swithun, patron saint of Winchester, through a now-sealed “Holy hole.”
Leaving Winchester behind, we drove eastward to the Bush Inn in the town of New Alresford, where the pilgrims’ footpath meanders along the picturesque River Itchen. We ate our fish and chips with the national beverage, room temperature, nearly flat ale, at picnic tables near a tiny footbridge as white swans sailed by on the water.
Then we made our way east, visiting some of the remote churches that still serve as pilgrimage way stations, set among massive, centuries-old yew trees and mossy gravestones so ancient that no trace of lettering remains. Late in the day, after a thunderstorm, we hiked up to St. Martha-on-the-Hill church, on one of the highest spots in Surrey, between the villages of Guildford and Chilworth, as a rainbow arced over the misty green countryside.
Day 2: Titsey to Merstham
We cycled a bit of the way in the morning (from Titsey St. James Church to Chevening), then drove to the St. Peter & St. Paul Church, an ancient (727) pilgrim way station in the village of Chaldon, near the town of Caterham. The church is famous for a rather terrifying 12th-century “doom painting.” It covers the entire back wall, with devils painted in dark red and yellow ocher tormenting sinners: A moneylender perpetually vomits up coins that he must then count; cheating tradesmen are forced to walk on a serrated metal bridge; a drunken pilgrim sprawls at the feet of the biggest devil.
“The Canterbury Tales” are about storytelling and camaraderie — a motley crew of 24 characters takes turns telling yarns. The most memorable, of course, is the Wife of Bath, the bawdy widow who outlived five husbands and whose tale ultimately explains that what women really want is a young, vigorous husband they can boss around.
We walked with two different groups of pilgrims, each motley in its own way. The first group we met by chance at the Harrow, a pub in Caterham. They were on a day hike organized by Kate Dean, the director of the Friends of Southwark Cathedral. Ms. Dean first organized a pilgrimage walk from Southwark to Canterbury in the early days of post-pandemic freedom in 2021. “When we got to Canterbury, we didn’t want it to stop,” she said. She has been organizing pilgrimage walks every third Sunday since.
On this Sunday, the day-tripping pilgrims included an accountant, an octogenarian retired schoolteacher, an artist and a gardener. The accountant, Mike Lawson, clad in a Guatemalan tunic, led the way, clutching a sheaf of paper maps, eschewing both iPhone and hiking apps. He had “rekkied” the way in advance, and chose to end the walk at the Feathers pub in Merstham (now temporarily closed).
Day 3: Otford-Kemsing-Trottiscliffe
The Pilgrims’ Way winds through centuries of history. Winston Churchill’s country estate, Chartwell, is near Westerham, about three miles off the Pilgrims’ Way. Nearby, in Brasted, the White Hart pub has framed signatures of pilots from nearby Biggin Hill Airport, who during World War II defended London during the Blitz.
From Otford, we drove east to Kemsing, which our guidebook (“The Pilgrims’ Way: To Canterbury From Winchester and London,” by Leigh Hatts) described as “the hidden town.” In fact, we missed it several times, but persevered because the history of the Kemsing church involves a charmingly tangled tale of early Saxon Christians. According to Mr. Hatts, it is the birthplace of St. Edith, daughter of King Edgar, who supposedly built a local convent in penance for his kidnapping of Edith’s mother, Wulfthryth. The church was an important way station as it once contained one of Edith’s arm bones as a healing relic.
From Kemsing, we drove on to Trottiscliffe and walked a forest path to Kit’s Coty, one of a series of megaliths on the Pilgrims’ Way — four colossal rocks arranged by Neolithic human hands, standing upright for 6,000 years on a lonely hill overlooking the countryside.
Day 4: Rochester to Friars Aylesford
On a cool and windy spring morning, the pilgrims with their backpacks and walking sticks were easy to spot by the colossal Rochester Cathedral door. A dozen strangers, they were at the start of a guided pilgrimage called the Augustine Camino from Rochester Cathedral to the Shrine of St. Augustine at Ramsgate. (The British St. Augustine was dispatched by the pope in the sixth century to convert the Anglo Saxons, became the first archbishop of Canterbury and is not to be confused with the Roman Augustine of “The Confessions”).
Rochester Cathedral is a popular starting point for pilgrims, with groups leaving for Canterbury or shrines farther east every week, said the Rev. Doug Emmott, a vocations adviser for the diocese. The group, led by Andrew Kelly, an experienced pilgrimage walker, gathered around Mr. Emmott, clad in a floor-length cassock, as he read from a prayer he has written for pilgrims, “May we travel unhindered by worldly possessions, simply trusting in you with all that we need.”
Modernity is never far from the 21st-century pilgrim. The whoosh of the M2 or M20 motorway is often background to birdsong in the woods. And the weary can always grab an Uber for a ride to the next inn, modern lodging without lice, fleas or livestock sleeping by the kitchen.
Mr. Kelly’s pilgrims ended their first day in spartan rooms with tiny doors, single beds and shared bathrooms at the Friars Aylesford, on the grounds of a priory founded in 1242 by the Carmelite friars, a way station for centuries of pilgrims.
Except for the stupendous cathedrals, much along the Pilgrims’ Way — the hamlets, narrow lanes, pubs — feels bite-size, fit to the bodies and conveyances of people who lived and walked centuries ago. At Aylesford’s Little Gem pub, built in the 1100s, behind a tiny door, in a miniature room with low ceilings, a bartender with a wizardly white beard pulled the customary room-temperature and nearly flat ales.
Day 5: Chartham to Canterbury
I walked the final segment of the way from the village of Chartham into Canterbury with Dawn Champion, a former wildlife conservationist and current head of community engagement at the British Pilgrimage Trust. Ms. Champion, like Mr. Kelly, approaches “pilgrimage” as something more than a hike in the woods.
As we set off on a three-hour walk, mostly through forest, she talked about how the walks help modern people connect not only with medieval times, but with pre-Christian animism and folklore. She stopped and plucked a tiny white flower, called an archangel — because it starts to flower around the feast of St. Michael the Archangel in spring and finishes flowering at his feast in autumn. “But it’s got an earlier tradition, around the fairies wearing the flowers as slippers,” she said. She brings a filter water bottle in order to sip from the various spiritual springs along the route. At one prehistoric site, she has her walkers lie on the ground and listen both to the birdsong and the sound of traffic, and imagine the pilgrims of yore hearing the clatter of carts headed to Canterbury.
Eventually we arrived at the Harbledown Holy Well — a significant way station fed by a spring that was supposed to have healing properties. King Henry II — whose knights murdered St. Thomas Becket — is said to have dismounted his horse and removed his shoes nearby to walk barefoot to Canterbury in penance. Here Ms. Champion filled her water bottle from the mossy pool and we drank it, with no effects miraculous or otherwise.
One of Chaucer’s pilgrims says the name Harbledown means “bob up and down.” And the way does bob up and down here. Over a final hill, the spires of Canterbury Cathedral — the oldest Christian structure in England, home to the archbishop of Canterbury since the sixth century — appear in the distance. The sight, after days of walking, especially for pilgrims seeking healing, would have inspired ecstasy. “For many pilgrims that would be a much more emotional moment than actual arrival,” Ms. Champion said.
We ended our pilgrimage inside the cathedral at evensong. Late-afternoon sun shafted through the 10th-century stained glass as the voices of the girl choristers of the cathedral choir lilted through the Anglican chant of a psalm.
Like all of the great cathedrals, Canterbury is filled with symbolism, history and mysteries — more than one can explore in a week, let alone an afternoon: a perpetually lit candle at the spot where Becket was murdered, a single tile supposedly cracked by the knife of one of his murderers, the complex “miracle” stained-glass windows dating to the 13th century, depicting Becket healing the sick. Pilgrim history is everywhere, visible and buried. In 2014, reconstruction workers unearthed a painted tile from the 14th or 15th century of a figure with a peaked hat, bent over a stick A fool, a jester or a pilgrim?
The British Pilgrimage Trust emphasizes the spiritual aspect of the pilgrimage, without tying it to any established religion. “The key is intention,” Ms. Champion said. “It’s about coming to terms with change or focusing on something. Quite often somebody might set out as a walker, but they finish it as a pilgrim.”
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