This weekend’s Sunday is the Third Sunday of Easter which means that St Aphege does not get much of a mention this year. In some years he is overtaken by Easter Week.

But 19 April is St Alphege’s Day.

Alphege was Bishop of Winchester and then Archbishop of Canterbury. He was martyred in Greenwich by Danish invaders in 1012.

Maybe it was the manner of his death which caused his successor Thomas Becket to invoke the name as he was murdered in the next century.

Alphege took the head of St Swithun with him when he was translated to Canterbury.

You can start your pilgrimage to Canterbury by visiting not only the St Swithun shrine site in Winchester Cathedral but also the St Alphege Chapel on the south side.

There you will find a carved stone Canterbury cross. This is based on a 9th-century bronze brooch found in Canterbury and now reproduced both as a souvenir and in stone to be sent to other cathedrals. One is also found at Bec Abbey which was the mother house of Archbishop Theobald of Bec -Thomas Becket’s immediate predecessor.