Leigh Hatts

The ruins  of Lesnes Abbey church will be treated as a living church again on Sunday. it will be the starting point for a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament. This is a Corpus Christi procession held two weeks late. A Corpus Christi procession was an annual event in nearby Bostall Woods before the Second World War. […]

The Thomas A Becket pub in London’s Old Kent Road is closed. Bailiffs have repossessed the ground floor space. The pub reopened with a fanfare on St Valentine’s Day last year calling itself Rock Island Grill at the Thomas A Becket. The ribbon was cut by Frank Bruno in recognition of the pub’s boxing heritage. […]

The path across Steer’s Field just before Denbies has reopened.

During the first weekend in June many in Southwark will be marking the first anniversary of the fatal terrorist attack on London Bridge and Borough Market. Borough Market and Southwark Cathedral were closed for a week during a long and careful search of the area. A total of eight innocent people died in the one […]

Pilgrims from Winchester approaching Box Hill may find that there is diversion due to travellers having occupied and blocked the National Trust owned Steer’s Field. Here, where the PW and North Downs Way coincide, the advice is to use the Pilgrims Way as shown on OS map and enter Denbies vineyard via Dorking: “Take the […]

Monday 23 April is St George’s Day. On the Pilgrims’ Way there is the oldest church dedicated to England’s patron saint. This is at Wrotham in Kent where there has been a St George’s Church since about 950. The present building dates from about 1280. Thomas Becket would have known the first one as he […]

Details of events at Canterbury Cathedral on the Translation of St Thomas Becket, Saturday 7 July, are now available. The Translation marks the day in 1220 when St Thomas Becket’s body was moved upstairs from the Cathedral crypt to the shrine built in the Trinity Chapel behind the high altar. Saturday 7 July 11am Medieval […]

Each year a hundred people walk from St Martin-in-the-Fields to Canterbury over four days. The Pilgrimage along the Pilgrims’ Way is a sponsored event raising thousands of pounds for the work of The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields. It begins at the steps of the church in Trafalgar Square and ends in the Canterbury Cathedral cloisters. […]

Tony Robinson’s Britain’s Great Cathedrals on Channel 5 this Friday features Canterbury. He will be at Winchester on Friday 11 May. The series began on Good Friday with York Minster. Also due to feature are Salisbury, Durham and Liverpool.

From today you can have your Pilgrim Passport stamped at Lesnes Abbey. The monastery was opened just eight years after Thomas Becket’s murder by his supporter Richard de Lucy who dedicated it to the martyr Archbishop. Today its ruins remain in a delightful woodland setting famous for its daffodils which are now appearing. Passports should […]