Thurs Sept 11. Aylesford. 29.2 km.

A long day of walking, with not much to report. I thought I had chosen an easy place to get to, as the Inn where I’m staying is right beside “the Pilgrims’ Way” on the map. But oh no, the new route is different - plus I got off the route three times today thanks to the complete lack of signposts. Many paths crisscrossing the land, signed very helpfully as ‘footpath’ or ‘bridle way’, but never an indication of where to. If you are planning a UK hike, beware!!

Country roads can be charming, but sometimes slow-going - this jam took the drivers about 10 minutes to figure out. And obviously the pedestrian waits.

Some nice moments.

St Benedict’s, Paddlesworth, was built around about 1100. In 1066 William the Conqueror invaded England successfully from Normandy. This seems to have ushered in an era of intense building. William had castles built across England, but obviously villages and towns must have equally busily been building churches, because almost every village I’ve walked through has a parish church that proclaims it dates from Norman times.

St Benedict’s is special because it hasn’t been modified over the centuries. This is the type of tiny church medieval pilgrims would have encountered. I have seen many such tiny churches/chapels in Italy - very few survive in Britain.

An 1100 face from inside St Benedict’s.

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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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