The pilgrims’ way: To canterbury from winchester and london by Leigh Hatts

Author:Leigh Hatts [Hatts, Leigh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cicerone
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

A surviving fragment of Otford Palace

The route from London joins the High Street opposite Otford Tearooms.

Go down the the right, or south, side of the church and follow the path ahead below a long brick wall (left) to leave the churchyard at a gate. After a double bend there is a view (right) across Church Field where St Thomas Becket’s well is located on the far side.

Go ahead only for Otford Station. The route continues sharp right on a still enclosed path. At the next junction go left over stiles at the railway line. (Before crossing look and listen.) On the far side a passage leads to a road. Cross over to find the way continuing.

The metalled way is enclosed before runnning along the edge of Oxenhill Woods (right). Ignore all turnings and stay on the path which joins Dynes Road. Still keep forward to reach, after almost a mile (1.49km), St Edith’s Well at the junction of the High Street and St Edith’s Road (right) by The Bell.

Take the footpath north of the well to climb up to the church. Turn left out of the church lychgate and through a gateway. Pass a playground (left) and walk ahead over the grass with trees on both sides. Later pass tennis courts (right) and in the far corner of the grassland there is a short woodland path leading to steps. Go left to the road and turn right.

KEMSING

A legend claims that the knights who murdered Becket rode through here on their way to Canterbury and today the church is said to be haunted by a knight who appears on 29 December. The knights are unlikely to have come this way but the village was visited by passing pilgrims whose staves may have made the many indentations in the 13th-century church door. The holy well outside the deli-café recalls St Edith of Wilton who was born here in 961. The site was a convent founded simultaneously with one in Winchester by King Edgar as a penance for abducting Edith’s mother Wulfrith from Wilton. Edith, whose statue can be seen outside the magnificent 1911 St Edith’s Hall, was the sister of Ethelred the Unready. Kemsing had an arm bone relic of Edith to show pilgrims. On St Edith’s Day, 16 September, there is well dressing and a procession.

Kemsing church porch door

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