Pilgrims Way (Part 2) – Day 1

• Start: Halling Train Station, Halling, Kent
• End: Bearstead Train Station, Bearsted, Kent
• Distance: 24.52 km
• Time: 07 hours 56 minutes 08 seconds

So, in August last year we completed a 7 day trek from Hampshire to Kent along the Pilgrim’s Way, finishing at Halling train station on the last day of the month. But we were never going to let that be the end of it and 7 months later we are back to complete the final 3 1/2 days and roughly 80km from Halling to Canterbury.

We arrived at Halling early this morning ready to get on with the next part of our adventure, following in the footsteps of millions of pilgrims over the last 847 years. They were all going to pay their respects to the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, killed by Henry II in what was perhaps one of the most disastrous political assassinations in history.

Let’s all hope that Charles R continues to confine his assassination attempts to witty speeches and doesn’t start muttering, “who will rid me of this troublesome president’ in the earshot of any heavily armed security men!

Long distance walking throws up a range of challenges and today was no exception. The first was 7 months of sitting around eating all the pies and the second was the weather, gloriously sunny, about 24 degrees centigrade, just what you want from a bank holiday weekend, unless you are lugging a 50kg bag up the Kentish Downs!

Those were the perils we knew about this morning, the ones that emerged during the day included wildlife;

Less than helpful path maintenance;

And, as we had noticed in our previous foray into Kent, many many cars! 🚗🚙🚚 Kent is a very beautiful county, but there is no doubt that its infrastructure has been developed to allow its residents to enjoy the countryside’s attractions from inside their SUV or Beemer and woe betide anyone who attempts to hog the roads using a bicycle or, god forbid, Shanks’s pony! In this poignant example, just outside the village of Detling, after 20 years of campaigning for a safe way across the busy A249, it took the death of 8 year old Jade, to final persuade the authorities to build this footbridge, which we used to safely cross today.

However, there were many many lovely things we saw and experienced today as well! It being Kent, there were Oast houses galore!

And although they have mostly been turned to residential use, the recently planted vineyards which stretched as far as the eye could see under the chalk cliffs demonstrate that creating the perfect tipple is still a Kentish pre-occupation even in the tipple in questions has changed from Ale to Wine.

As you would expect from the premier pilgrimage route in the UK, there were plenty of churches today.

First up was the church of St John In Halling. Although closed today, it supposedly houses some fine 12th Century wall paintings and is located next to what was once the Bishop of Rochester’s Palace now solely represented by a wall in the graveyard.

Next we came to ‘the lonely church’ in Burham, dedicated to St Mary, probably my favourite church today. Most of the Churches we have been to on the Pilgrims way show signs of great wealth at one point or another, pilgrimage was the medieval tourism after all and I’m sure that Burham church was once similarly wealthy. However, from the 1800’s onwards the village gradually moved away from the church, retreating up towards the Downs as a result of heavy industry being built along the river. They even built a new church, (though this was demolished itself in 1981) leaving ‘the lonely church’, isolated on the river bank, preserved only by the The Churches’ Conservation Trust.

Next up was Aylesford, home to a remarkable survivor of catholicism, Aylesford Priory.

This priory, first founded in by St Simon Stock in 1242 was abandoned by the community in 1538 but then repopulated 410 years later in 1948 and remains a thriving community today. We only ventured as far as the tea shop, where we had a very pleasant lunch 🙂

After lunch we headed into the pretty town of Aylesford itself,

home to the church of St Peter’s and St Pauls, another one sadly not open today.

Thence came the attractive church of All Saints’ and St Mary’s at Boxley,

which clearly demonstrated the wealth that pilgrimage brings, though the resident wasps nest brought our visit to an abrupt end, (no I don’t have a picture of that, I’m not a fan of wasps! 🐝.)

The final church of the day was St Martins’ of Detling, I don’t know if that was open or not as we were in a rush! We had to get a train from Bearsted to our hotel, still some 3K distant, in only 35 minutes! The keener eyed amongst you might notice in the Garmin trace that starts this post, that the more leisurely greens, blues and yellows of our walk, change to reds and oranges for the last few kilometres as we pick up the pace!

We did arrive at Bearsted in time for the train, with some 3 minutes to spare! We will be travelling back there tomorrow to pick-up our journey.