Day Three, Tuesday 15 May 2011

Accommodation:  The Arthouse B&B, Canterbury

Temperature:  nothing much above 7 degrees.

Overall a dreary, bleak cold day with intermittent showers. 

We collected our car in Earl’s Court and we are now driving around in a near-new Peugeot 207 diesel.  After getting our bearings and attaching the GPS we drove out of London.  Having a navigation system certainly takes the stress out of travel!  As we approached Harrods we noticed the shop resplendent with Union Jacks celebrating, I’m sure, for the Queen’s Jubilee.  We were suddenly surrounded by very loud music which we could hear over the car radio with our windows up!  Land of Hope and Glory was being broadcast from Harrods at a very very loud volume….we could hear it hundreds of metres down the street after we left.  It certainly is a stirring anthem.

We took the quickest route to Canterbury on the major arterial and arrived at our B&B about noon.  Our host quickly settled us into our room and we headed off to explore.  He had given us the tip of visiting The Goods Shed Farmer’s Market and after a bit of walk down a street near a railway station a rather nondescript building housed a wonderful array of farming products as well as a rustic restaurant.   We chose to have lunch here and the food was just what we needed – home-made soup,  burger and freshly squeezed juice.

The market is housed in the old railway goods shed.

It was then on to Canterbury Cathedral the purpose of our stop-over at this lovely city.  We purchased tickets for a tour however we wandered through the nave, choir area and altar as we had some time before it commenced.  As David and I were the only ones on the tour we had our own private guide.  She was very thorough and she held our attention for an hour and three quarters.

Canterbury Cathedral has had a church on this site since St Augustine was sent by the Pope in 640AD after the Romans retreated.  There are plaques listing all the Archbishops since then and there are many tombs holding the remains of former archbishops.  The ceilings soar high and heavenwards and the newest nave has exisited since 1400.

The magnificent nave.

Of course, the most famous Archbishop was Thomas  Beckett (1162 -1174) and we spent considerable time exploring the history of his life and death.  Henry II was blamed for his murder  and he famously made a pilgrimage to the cathedral to pay his penance at Beckett’s shrine.   Thomas Beckett was made a saint two years after his death after many miracles were attributed to him.  Many pilgrims still come to the cathedral and walk on their knees as they ascend to the altar.

Unfortunately, Henry VIII removed all traces of Thomas Beckett some hundreds of years later and a candle is continually lit where his shrine was at the altar.

The exterior cloisters attached to the cathedral are particularly beautiful and we knew we had visited the cathedral at a good time as the weather was bitterly cold with rain.  The Benedictine monks worked here on church work including copying Holy Scriptures.  It must have been a very tough life however it was viewed as part of their ‘suffering’.

Pope John Paul and the Archbishop Runcie both prayed at the altar of St Thomas in 1982 the first time a Catholic bishop and an Anglican bishop had done so since the separation of the churches by Henry VIII.

The tour completed David and I wandered through the old gate to find a coffee shop and fill in some time before Evensong at 5.30. 

Evensong was a real treat and something I had planned for some time.  The choir master entered with two rows of twenty-four choristers .  About ten boys and older men dressed in long purple robes with white overlays faced each other across the choir aisle.  We were able to sit in the choir area and about forty people attended.  The singing was magical, no sermon, two readings from the old testament and the new testament made a simple but moving service.

It was then time to wander the streets and take in the old buildings before a quick bite to eat and bed.  The weather was very cold so we were pleased to head home to warm accommodation. 

A very interesting day all round!