Leigh Hatts

What should you do at Southwark Cathedral when setting out on your walk to Canterbury? Get your passport from the shop; buy postcards for your friends; look at figures on the great screen behind the high altar and find St Thomas Becket and St Swithun; say a prayer and light a candle. And of course […]

Tuesday 18 July is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death in Winchester. The novelist, who is buried in the cathedral, will be remembered at Choral Evensong with music familiar to her and a hymn based on a prayer written by her. Earlier in the afternoon, Bank of England staff will be in the cathedral […]

Next weekend is good time to start out from Winchester on the Pilgrims’ Way. Saturday 15 July is  St Swithun’s Day. At Winchester Cathedral the First Evensong of St Swithun will be sung on Friday evening 14 July at 5.30pm. On Saturday 15 July, St Swithuns’s Day, there are celebrations of the Eucharist at 8am […]

Friday 7 July is the Translation of St Thomas of Canterbury. Translation refers to the moving of Thomas Becket’s body in 1220 from the Canterbury Cathedral crypt to his new shrine upstairs in the main church. So Friday’s observances at the cathedral are like his feast day in December except at a more convenient time […]

Abinger Hammer in Surrey was recently listed as one of the most idyllic English villages. The pub has closed and its church is two miles away from the main street and the Pilgrims’ Way route. But the village is attractive and just near its famous hammer clock, where the trail turns uphill, is Abinger Hammer’s […]

The lavender fields between Lullingtone and Shoreham in the Darenth valley are beginning to turn purple. They should be in full bloom during the first week of July. The Pilgrims’ Way runs along the bottom of the fields and close to Castle Farm’s hidden Hop Shop selling lavender products. There is already a haze of […]

This month’s issue of The Pilgrim, the Archdiocese of Southwark’s newspaper, has a feature on the Pilgrims’ Way guidebook. You will find copies of the newspaper (50p) in Roman Catholic churches south of the Thames in the capital and in Kent. By chance the paper also carries a fascinating news in brief item on a […]

On leaving Halling and crossing Peters Village Bridge over the River Medway on a Sunday afternoon you might find tea available at Wouldham. Turn left, or north, for Wouldham and Rochester. Cream teas are served at All Saints’ Church Wouldham on Sundays 18 June, 16 July, 20 August and 17 September; 2-4.30pm. This might also be […]

An outdoor mural on the front of the the former civic centre in the Old Kent Road has been given a Grade II listing by Historic England. The work, completed in 1965, is by Adam Kossowski whose mosaics can also be seen further along the Pilgrims’ Way at Aylesford Priory. The panels depict pilgrims to […]

There will be an illustrated talk on the Pilgrims’ Way from London to Canterbury as part of Pilgrimage Today: Four Ways to become a Pilgrim on Saturday 13 May at Southwark Cathedral. Four talks will look at different aspects of pilgrimage: 10am Brian Mooney: Via Francigena: Pilgrimage before Ryanair – On Foot to Rome and […]