Pilgrims' Way

For other uses, see Pilgrims' Way (disambiguation).
Pilgrims' Way

Pilgrims' Way near Westwell, Kent
Length 192 km (119 mi)
Location South Eastern England, United Kingdom
Trailheads Winchester, Hampshire
Shrine of Thomas Becket, Canterbury, Kent
Use Hiking, cycling and byway; former pilgrim way
Hiking details
Season All year

The Pilgrims' Way (also Pilgrim's Way or Pilgrims Way[1]) is the historical route supposed to have been taken by pilgrims from Winchester in Hampshire, England, to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury in Kent. This name, of comparatively recent coinage, follows closely a pre-existing ancient trackway dated by archaeological finds to 500–450 BC, but has probably been in existence since the stone age.[2][3] The prehistoric route followed the "natural causeway" east to west on the southern slopes of the North Downs.[4]

The course was dictated by the natural geography: it took advantage of the contours, avoided the sticky clay of the land below but also the thinner, overlying "clay with flints" of the summits.[5] In places a coexisting ridgeway and terrace way can be identified; the route followed would have varied with the season, but it would not drop below the upper line of cultivation.[6][7] The trackway ran the entire length of the North Downs, leading to and from Folkestone: the pilgrims would have had to turn away from it, north along the valley of the Great Stour near Chilham, to reach Canterbury.

History

Map of Pilgrims Way near Titsey, Surrey. The upper route, on the brow of the North Downs, is the ancient trackway (note the archaeological finds at the top left); the lower, almost in the valley, is the route surmised by the Ordnance Survey in the 19th century

The prehistoric trackway extended further than the present Way, providing a link from the narrowest part of the English Channel to the important religious complexes of Avebury and Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, where it is known as the Harroway.[8][9] The route was still followed as an artery for through traffic in Roman times, a period of continuous use of more than 3000 years.[3]

From Thomas Becket's canonization in 1173 until the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538 his shrine at Canterbury became the most important in the country, indeed "after Rome...the chief shrine in Christendom",[10] and it drew pilgrims from far and wide. Winchester, apart from being an ecclesiastical centre in its own right (the shrine of St Swithin), was an important regional focus and an aggregation point for travellers arriving through the seaports on the south coast.[5] Travellers from Winchester to Canterbury naturally used the ancient way, as it was the direct route, and research by local historians has provided much by way of detail—sometimes embellished—of the pilgrims' journeys. The numbers making their way to Canterbury by this route were not recorded, but the estimate by the Kentish historian William Coles Finch that it carried more than 100,000 pilgrims a year is surely an exaggeration.[11][12] A separate (and more reliably attested) route to Canterbury was by way of Watling Street from London, as followed by the storytellers in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Indeed, the concept of a single route called the Pilgrims' Way seems to be no older than the Victorian Ordnance Survey map of Surrey, whose surveyor, Edward Renouard James, published a pamphlet in 1871 entitled Notes on the Pilgrims' Way in West Surrey. Here he asserted that the route was "little studied" and that "very many persons in the neighbourhood" had not been aware of it.[13] His insertion of the route name on the Ordnance map gave an official sanction to his conjecture; and writers such as Hilaire Belloc were eager to follow it up. In fact, the route as shown on modern maps is not only unsuitable for the mass movement of travellers but has also left few traces of their activity.[14] The official history of the Ordnance Survey acknowledges the "enduring archaeological blunder", blaming the enthusiasm for history of the then Director, General Sir Henry James.[15] Together, romantically inclined authors have succeeded in creating "a fable of...modern origin" to explain the existence of the Way.[3]

The Pilgrims' Way is at the centre of the Powell and Pressburger film A Canterbury Tale, with the camera panning along a map of the route at the start of the film.[16]

Route

In the Middle Ages the pilgrims' route left the ancient trackway to climb St Martha's Hill[3]
On the Pilgrims' Way near Trottiscliffe, Kent

Anyone walking the 'Pilgrims Way' from Winchester would have started along the Roman road east following the route through New Alresford, Alton and Bentley to Farnham. This roughly follows the modern A31.

The ancient main streets of towns along the route from Farnham (where the old trackway converges with the pilgrims' route)[3] through Guildford, Dorking and Reigate align west to east, strongly suggesting that this was the most important route that passed through them. On modern Ordnance Survey maps, part of the route is shown running east from Farnham via the heights by Guildford Castle, then north of the village of Shere, north of Dorking, Reigate, Merstham, Chaldon, Godstone, Limpsfield and Westerham, through Otford, Kemsing and Wrotham, north of Trottiscliffe, towards Cuxton (where it crossed the River Medway). Along some stretches the pilgrims' route left the ancient trackway to encompass religious sites, an example being at Pewley Down, near Guildford, where the later way passed St Martha's Hill and The Chantries, some 500 metres to the south.[3] At Reigate the thirteenth-century chapel of St Thomas and a hospice were built for the pilgrims' use, although they were not on the route.[17][18] South of Rochester, the Pilgrims' Way travels through the villages of Burham, Boxley, Detling and continuing in a south-east direction to the north of the villages of Harrietsham and Lenham. The route continues south-east along the top of the Downs past Charing, to Wye and then turns north to follow the valley of the Great Stour through Chilham and on to Canterbury.

Walk

The North Downs Way National Trail parallels the old Pilgrims' Way between Farnham and Canterbury. Much of the traditional route of the Pilgrims' Way is now part of the modern road network and the Ramblers has previously advised walkers wishing to follow it to use St. Swithuns Way between Winchester and Farnham and the North Downs Way between Farnham and Canterbury as an alternative.[19]

The route also links with the South Downs Way at Winchester.

Notes and references

  1. ↑ All three usages are noted on Ordnance Survey maps
  2. ↑ Brayley, Edward (1850). A topographical history of Surrey 4. London: G Willis. p. 218. OCLC 4601837.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Margary, Ivan D (1948). Roman Ways in the Weald. London: J M Dent. pp. 260–263. ISBN 0-460-07742-2.
  4. ↑ Fagg, C. C.; Hutchings, G. E. (1928). "Prehistory". In Ogilvie, Alan Grant. Great Britain: essays in regional geography. Tansley, A. G. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. p. 29. OCLC 59447377.
  5. 1 2 Wright, Christopher John (1971). A Guide to the Pilgrims' Way. Constable and Co, London. ISBN 0-09-456240-7
  6. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica (1998) Pilgrims' Way.
  7. ↑ Wooldridge, Sidney; Hutchings, Geoffrey (1957). London's Countryside : Geographical field work for students and teachers of geography. London: Methuen. p. 121. OCLC 788928682.
  8. ↑ Castleden, Rodney (1987). "The High Roads". The Stonehenge People: An Exploration of Life in Neolithic Britain, 4700-2000 BC. Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 0-7102-0968-1.
  9. ↑ Crawford, Osbert (1953). Archaeology in the Field. London: Phoenix House. p. 7. OCLC 30245154.
  10. ↑ Wright (1971: 16)
  11. ↑ Finch, William Coles (1925). In Kentish pilgrim land, its ancient roads and shrines. London: Charles William Daniel. p. 77. OCLC 6213389.
  12. ↑ Hooper, Wilfrid (1936). "The Pilgrims’ Way and its supposed pilgrim use". Surrey Archaeological Collections (Guildford: Surrey Archaeological Society) 44: 47. In their train have followed the host of guide-books and popular writers who have expanded and embellished ad libitum as fancy prompted
  13. ↑ James, Edward Renouard (1871). Notes on the Pilgrims Way in West Surrey. London: Edward Stanford. p. 6. OCLC 560914994.
  14. ↑ Parker, Eric (1947). "The Pilgrims Way". Surrey. London: Hale. OCLC 4320463.
  15. ↑ Owen, Tim; Pilbeam, Elaine (1992). Ordnance Survey. Southampton, England: Ordnance Survey. p. 64. ISBN 0-319-00498-8.
  16. ↑ Hauser, Kitty (2007). "From Pilgrims' Way to the railway". Shadow Sites: Photography, Archaeology, and the British Landscape, 1927-1955. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 256–261. ISBN 0-19-920632-5.
  17. ↑ Wright (1971: 134)
  18. ↑ Malden, Henry Elliot, ed. (1902). A history of the County of Surrey 3. London: Constable. pp. 229–245. OCLC 2979914.
  19. ↑ North Downs Way National Trail. Page archived (as at 2012-07-28) from the Ramblers' Association, accessed 2013-04-29

External links

Coordinates: 51°17′N 0°4′E / 51.283°N 0.067°E / 51.283; 0.067

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