Canterbury Cathedral has been the mother church of English Christianity for fourteen hundred years, and it stands in the middle of a compact walled city in east Kent, rising out of a tangle of medieval lanes. The central tower, called Bell Harry, was finished in the late fifteenth century and can be seen for miles across the surrounding farmland, a pale spire above the orchards and hop gardens.
The story begins in 597, when a Roman monk called Augustine arrived on the coast of Kent sent by Pope Gregory the Great, to convert the English. King Æthelberht of Kent, whose wife Bertha was already a Christian, allowed him to settle in Canterbury, and Augustine became the first archbishop. The cathedral itself grew over the following centuries, and its fame increased dramatically after the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in the north-west transept on the 29th of December 1170, killed by four knights who believed that the king, Henry II, wanted him silenced. Becket was made a saint within three years, and pilgrims flooded in. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written in the late fourteenth century, follows a group of them. In 1538, Henry VIII destroyed the shrine and scattered the relics, and today a single candle marks the place. The cathedral, together with the ruins of Saint Augustine's Abbey and the church of Saint Martin, was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1988.
The riding here is mostly about getting in and out. The city centre is largely pedestrianised, with a ring road that is busy at rush hour, and parking near the cathedral is limited, so use the park-and-ride sites on the edge and walk through the narrow streets. Beyond the walls, the best roads are the small lanes across the North Downs, through villages with oast houses and flint churches, and the coast road to Whitstable, famous for its oysters, is about ten kilometres to the north. Rain is frequent, and the lanes can be slippery with mud and leaves in autumn.
Canterbury has everything: fuel on the ring road, supermarkets, and countless cafes and pubs inside the walls, many in wonky timbered houses. Sturry and Blean, on the northern side, are quieter. Visit on a weekday morning in spring, before the school groups arrive, and take time for the choir stalls and the stained glass.