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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 […]

Lent Lilies, or daffodils, are out at Lesnes Abbey as the garden and woods recover from the snow. Pilgrims from Southwark pass through Lesnes Abbey on their way from Shooters Hill to Dartford on Day 2. The Abbey, now an outline of stones, is dedicated to St Thomas Becket. Tradition holds that the daffodils are […]

With the hint of warmer weather pilgrims are starting to set out from Southwark Cathedral for Canterbury Cathedral. Those making the pilgrimage in Lent, that is before the end of this month, will see a huge dark cloud in Southwark Cathedral. This is the Lent installation by Susie MacMurray which is called Doubt. It hangs […]

A group from St Mary Magdalene Church Wandsworth Common set out today from Southwark to Canterbury. This is the first parish party of the 2018 season. They left London, with their vicar Philippa Boardman, two weeks ahead of Chaucer’s recommended April. The pilgrims received a blessing at the early morning Eucharist in Southwark Cathedral before […]

Expect the flag to be at half mast today at Lullingstone Castle where the funeral of Guy Hart Dyke is being held at the church in the grounds. He celebrated his 90th birthday a few days before a peaceful death on Monday 12 February. The church is St Botolph’s, known as ‘the church on the […]

This year is the centenary of the Muriel Spark’s birth. The novelist was born in Edinburgh on 1 February 1918. She died in 2006. Her complicated and at first stressful adult life saw her living at many addresses. One was Aylesford Priory on the Pilgrims’ Way where she arrived in October 1954. After a short […]

Pilgrimage can be made in many ways, by luxury group travel, on foot or by bike. But it does not need to be expensive or painful. A free one day event at Southwark Cathedral on Saturday 24 February will offer advice from experienced pilgrims on  how to prepare yourself physically and practically with suitable kit, […]

The Royal Oak in Southwark will now stamp your Pilgrims’ Way passport. The award-winning pub, on the corner of Tabard Street and Nebraska Street, is popular with real ale enthusiasts. Food is available every lunchtime. The Pilgrims’ Way passes the Royal Oak main doorway as Tabard Street was the continuation of Old Kent Road. Passports can […]

On the fifth Day of Christmas 847 years ago Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. This Friday 29 December the anniversary will be kept with a special evensong at 3.15pm. Becket died as Vespers was starting. So during sung evensong at Canterbury Cathedral there is a procession to the Martyrdom where a few […]

In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay, Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage To Canterbury This appears on the first page of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer published in 1896 by the Kelmscott Press. The 87 wood-cut illustrations are by Edward Burne-Jones. A Folio Society facsimile edition is available for visitors to leaf through as part […]