Fri Sept 12. Rochester. 13.2 km.

This morning was spent at the Priory of Aylesford. Run by Carmelite monks, it is a peaceful and welcoming place. The Priory was closed under Henry VIII in 1538, but in 1948 50 monks arrived in procession to reclaim their abbey. They have done a splendid job of restoring and beautifying their home. Here is part of their main church - it is like walking in to a jewel box.

I had planned to walk to Rochester and back today, but having messed up my map reading, it was too far away for that to be practical. So instead I walked to the nearest train station and took one of the very frequent, quiet, smooth, efficient trains. This is a heavily populated area, and the train connections are totally impressive - almost as good as the London tube! It would be very easy indeed to do my pilgrimage route using public transport.

Rochester would have definitely been a destination for medieval pilgrims en route to Canterbury. Chaucer, who doesn’t say much at all about his pilgrims’ journey, concentrating rather on the stories they tell during their trek, does mention that the pilgrim monk tells his story in Rochester.

Rochester Cathedral was founded by St Augustine in 604. Today’s building dates from 1080 - so another Norman building. Looking at the outside, the resemblance to French Romanesque architecture is obvious. For comparison, the front of Poitier’s beautiful Notre-Dame-la-Grande, also eleventh century.

Medieval pilgrims to Rochester would have been impressed no doubt by various holy relics, all of which would have been banished with the change to Protestant Church of England. Frescoes covering the walls were destroyed at the Reformation, but one little bit remains, half of a Wheel of Fortune, which was hidden behind a piece of furniture and thus escaped obliteration. The important person at the top (a king?) doesn’t look too happy as he contemplates whether a smiling Fortune may spin him off the wheel…

Getting ready for a rock concert in the Cathedral. The sound test was loud!

Lots of other things to see in Rochester, including an impressive 12th - 16th century castle, but I was lured elsewhere by a piece of false advertising (as Alice would say). Charles Dickens knew Rochester very well, and the advertising goes that he modelled the interior of a house in “Great Expectations “ after a 16th century house, now open to the public for a pretty hefty entrance fee. It was a fine house, but on closer inquiry it turns out that Dickens never even entered it! Here are schoolchildren in front of the house.

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September 5

I landed at Heathrow this morning at 6 am, a very inconvenient time to get a room and rest! But my student residence accommodation includes a common room with handy couches for a short snooze. The neighbourhood abuts on Regent’s Park, complete with gorgeous flowerbeds. The Queen Mary’s rose garden in Regent’s Park. My neighbourhood wandering took me to the Wallace House which used to be one of the homes of the marquesses of Hertford. The Hertfords were fabulously rich, mainly from extensive land holdings, and in the 18th and 19th centuries avid art collectors. They obviously had Trumpian home decorating tastes. Here are two of their many clocks, all of which need frequent ‘fine tuning’, it appears. I particularly liked two 18th c British paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds in their collection: Mrs Carnac and the hauntingly strange Strawberry Girl.

Sat Oct 4. London.

19 days walking on pilgrimage paths for a total of 395 km or 245 miles on foot (not that arduous - an average of 20.7 km per day, and lots of ‘rest days’ staying put in one place). All of that undone in 1.5 hours on a Eurostar train. I’m not entirely sure what conclusion I’m drawing from that comparison, but I’m back where I started, in London. On my way to my lodgings (I’m staying in a Buddhist retreat centre) I decided to visit the first visitable place to cross my path, which turned out to be the Foundling Museum. Horrified by the sight of infants being abandoned on 18th c London streets, a prosperous seaman, Thomas Coram, spent 17 years raising awareness and funds, as well as obtaining royal permission to build London’s first children’s charity. Opened in 1739, the Foundling Hospital continued its work until the 1950s, and actually is still active as a non-institutional resource, under a different name. Here is a photo of it in 1935. So many similarities to ...

Saturday September 6

I have given myself today and tomorrow in London before starting the walk. A good thing because I’m having technical difficulties getting on to the AirB&B site that I need to access for my Monday night accommodation… Today I had a lovely walk to Canary Wharf along quiet streets bordering the Thames. The tide was high and the water a bit agitated, but the sun was warm and the strollers happy. Over 25,000 bombs fell on this area of London in WWII as the Germans fully recognised the importance of maritime trade to British resilience. Some warehouses have survived (or been rebuilt) and the extensive blocks of post-war flats are very attractive (and very very expensive.) I had a pleasant break in a sixteenth century pub, the ‘Prospect of Whitby’, where Charles Dickens would come to listen to dock folk - original flagstone floors and a pewter counter on the bar. From the waterfront balcony patrons in earlier days could watch as pirates and smugglers were hung from a gibb...

Celia Walks

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