Canterbury has been the centre of English Christianity for fourteen centuries, and the ruined abbey of Saint Augustine is where it began. In AD 597, Augustine, a Roman monk sent by Pope Gregory the Great, landed in Kent with a small group of companions to convert the English. King Aethelberht of Kent, whose wife Bertha was already a Christian, received them, and the king himself was baptised soon afterwards. Augustine founded a monastery outside the city walls, where he and his successors were buried, and it grew into one of the richest abbeys in England.
The abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538, and much of it was demolished or turned into a royal palace. What remains is a field of low ruins, outlines of walls and chapels, and a museum that tells the story. It is a quiet, moving place, and seen together with Canterbury Cathedral and the little church of Saint Martin, it forms the World Heritage site that UNESCO listed in 1988. Saint Martin's is among the oldest churches in England still in use, and probably dates from Roman times in part.
The cathedral, a short walk away, is the mother church of the Anglican Communion, and the site of the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170, which turned Canterbury into a pilgrimage destination. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written in the late fourteenth century, follows a group of pilgrims on the road from London to Becket's shrine, and the city still plays on that connection with everything from walking tours to a visitor attraction.
For a rider, the Kent countryside around Canterbury is soft and green, with orchards, hop gardens and flinty lanes. The roads are narrow and hedged, with tight bends and the odd muddy patch, and they are best explored on weekday mornings. The A2 and A28 bring most traffic into the city, and the medieval centre is largely pedestrianised, so use a car park or park-and-ride on the edge.
Canterbury has fifty-five thousand people, with fuel on the ring road and plenty of cafés and pubs in the old streets. Allow a couple of hours for the abbey and cathedral.