I walked from Canterbury to Winchester in 2004, and then twice more, and twice from Winchester to Cbury, hoping to find a better route, looking for new variations.
I tried parts of the Greensand way - a lower level semi-down between the larger north and south downs - and also tried to simply reinvent the South Downs way as a pilgrimage route. The National Trails organiser was not impressed with my provisional title ‘The South Downs Pilgrim’s Way’.
The problem was that all the evidence had been destroyed. Henry 8 was thorough in erasing Becket, right down to his coat of arms from the oldest tax records. The only Breviary in the Kingdom that kept Becket’s details was Henry’s own! Apparently, Henry even had Becket’s bones exhumed, put on trial, declared guilty of treachery, and blasted from a cannon! (But this may be papal anti-Reformation counter propaganda).
My breakthrough for this route finally came while sat at home, of all places following a Daily Mail clickbait title (trashy UK news rag) about ‘Britain’s oldest road map’. I looked deeper and there it was, a thin red line marked on a map of 1360, leading to Canterbury. And it was not from Winchester, but from Southampton! This was the primary evidence I had not dared to hope for.
It made sense. Becket was hugely popular with European pilgrims, and made Canterbury a global tourism destination. They all had to arrive from somewhere. I figure that anywhere along the south coast, between Soton and Cbury, was a starting point for European pilgrims if they were arriving by the imprecise science of sails and tides. The path follows many ex-ports, like Titchfield, once thriving hubs of naval commerce, now small forgotten villages.
I also found the Titchfield Itineries, records of routes travelled by pre-monstratensian monks at Titchfield Abbey. One of the ways they went was Titchfield to Lewes - the first half of Old Way. And then I learned of St Richard of Chichester, who frequently travelled to Dover and Canterbury (he died at the former) and was reputed to only walk, to never ride. And then I found about a Southampton merchant whose house collapsed, preserving its history, and two becket ampulla being discovered there in the wreckage there.
Plus, there was the tale of Henry II, who landed in Southampton and made his way to Canterbury for the penitential pilgrimage for Becket’s death. The court rolls do not specify his route. But it is tempting to imagine he came by the path marked on Gough Map.
So I plotted this route on modern maps, obeying the Gough Map’s anchor points. I love plotting long distance routes. And it looked immediately functional - a little hairy at the start with urban accumulation, but manageable with evasive manoeuvres. It promised lots of hills and woods and ruined monasteries and wells and stories. It was as if the route was waiting to be rediscovered.
First time I walked it, in April 2018, was tremendously exciting. I was amazed by the extant sacred infrastructure of the route. Netley Abbey - the ‘happy place’ famed for welcoming travellers. Southwick priory - where even Henry 8 made pilgrimage. Lewes priory - where England won her first parliament thanks to Simon de Montfort. Chichester - famed shrine of the south coast. The Maid of Kent’s shrine on the Romney Marshes. The many many ancient yews. And the holy wells, almost every day providing flowing natural water, a journey infrastructure surely predating even pilgrimage.
But my very top discovery of this first journey was the holy well of Becket in Canterbury cathedral - again, marked plain as day on an 1150 map - and for 200 years after Becket’s death the only souvenir pilgrims were permitted to take. This was Becket’s MO - healing water - as the many Trinity windows show.
And the water was still right there, where the map said, under a little drain cover. And it still tasted of blood. It must be a chalybeate well, which is very rare in Kent, and probably the original holy place that caused the cathedral itself to be built here. And totally unmarked, uncelebrated, unloved. Like the route, and like British pilgrimage in general.
For me, the journey was intense. I had a businesslike focus. I took a ton of photos with a high grade camera, which I hardly knew how to use when setting out. I had a job to do, to uncover this route and get it flowing. I believed in its importance. It had taken me 14 years to find! I meant to crack on with efficiency. So it felt very purposeful, and supported, as though the route was glad to have finally been uncovered after so long being ignored.
The lineage of pilgrimage is ongoing and constant. On some stormy evenings, I could almost see the travellers of the past struggling around me. They left their mark all over the landscape - like Cuthman, who walked a part of Old Way with his mum in a wheelbarrow, reaching Steyning before the wheel broke and he built the huge church - where King Alfred’s dad is buried. Or like Willibald - who set off from River Hamble to be the first English pilgrim to Jerusalem, and where modern Oldwayers have to take a boat even today (a pink ferry now).
Also, the water - flowing from the hillsides, or rising softly and insistently as it has for countless aeons. In the town of Havant, for example, rises the Home Well, after which the town is named. The Roman roads in all 4 directions are still anchored to this source. This water apparently made the parchment on which the Treaty of Versailles was written.
The same is true of stone as water - walking through the gateways you know that pilgrims of 800 years ago also walked through - of which there are many, all along the path - is always a trans-generational experience. Portals hold this memory of transition, and like the long man of Wilmington (no way 17th century, despite the ‘first written evidence’ reductionist historical assertion), the door of possibility is held open, and the magic of choosing to pass through it is felt anew by each passing pilgrim. We are each always the first to cross the threshold: the discoveries of the new world beyond are ours alone, a wonder shared by all.
I liked especially the 2 Westgates - the one in Southampton where the Mayflower ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ passed through, as well as the soldiers to Agincourt, and the one in Canterbury that so many Becket pilgrims passed through.
Also, the Yew trees. They surveil the path in constancy, ancient watchers who have seen it all before, all us quick little folk with our sticks and songs. 3000 years some have stood. Touching them brings us into direct shared contact with all the pilgrims of the past. You can absolutely feel this as you follow the Way.
Water has been central to my plotting this route - as it would have been to every pilgrim of every generation. The infrastructure of Britain is built on wells and springs, and though taps make us forget this deep past, we have only just moved past their crucial consideration in making choices of where to go.
I have carried water from Saltwood to Canterbury many times. This is a 3 day stretch, and Saltwood is the disputed castle that Becket claimed to outrage the Kentish nobility, who were instrumental in his eventual murder. From here the 4 knights rode. And the well still flows (it is an underground river I believe), allowing the carrying of this water in a non-murderous manner to balm the wounds of our past. (nb - you can only get into Saltwood Castle a few times a year - it remains a private residence).
I have an ambition to take water to Canterbury from the forgotten well of Southampton - the Colwell - which was built and donated by the Franciscans in 1211 to the city, and provided all drinking water for 500+ years, and still flows, altough unseen hidden in grotty urban woods where folks leave their needles.
But I have not yet achieved this. Perhaps in 2021?
I have carried soil from 3 WW1 battlefields (Arras, Ypres, Somme) from Southampton to Canterbury on Old Way, and left a pinch at 100 war memorials England route. This was hard and heavy work.
If life is spiritual, water is always a spiritual experience. I like the challenge of only drinking wild water while walking stretches of Old Way. I love making contact with its flow before filtering and drinking. I like to give it song, silver and silence. The sound of its laughter is deeply refreshing sanity, even when surrounded by the madness of metal roads and heavy angry traffic.
My guidebook to the Old Way is coming very soon…
