Things I saw in Canterbury

[ewx]

Westgate. A C14th construction replacing an earlier Roman gatehouse.

A more modern gateway.

Remains of the Roman walls, originally built in the late 3rd century, presumably in response to raids from across the North Sea.

Remains of the castle. Constructed by Henry I, at one point occupied by the French.

This particular fragment of Watling Street lines up with the road south to Dover, but not the road up to London.

Christ Church Gate, the main public entrance to the Cathedral grounds. Originally built in the C16th but subject to a lot of destruction and restoration since then. As the photo suggests the city centre was utterly crawling with school trips.

Canterbury Cathedral. Bede says Augustine restored a Roman church with the help of King Æthelberht here; one of the reconstructed views of Roman Canterbury I saw later has a Roman temple in this location. Archaeologists, on the other hand, have apparently found nothing older than the Anglo-Saxon building (albeit including recycled Roman stone).

Be that as it may, the Normans started from scratch after a fire, very shortly after the conquest, and the building has continued to evolve over the subsequent nine centuries.

Looking up...

Shrine to St Thomas Becket, murdered on the orders (misinterpreted or otherwise) of Henry II.

Chair of St Augustine. This instance dates from the C13th.

Jesus ascending. You can see his feet at the top.

St Martin’s Church. Identified by Bede as the place of worship of Queen Bertha, wife of Æthelberht. She was born a Frankish princess (which presumably explains the choice of saint). Gregory of Tours mentions her thus: “[she] eventually married a man from Kent and went to live there”. He died before Augustine’s mission, otherwise I suspect he’d have made rather more of it!

Bede thinks the church (of his day) was built in Roman times, and it seems to be generally agreed that the building (which was closed the day I visited) has Roman bits, though most of it is later. It claims (as far as I know, completely accurately) to be the oldest church in England that is still in use.

Sir John Boys house. Built in the C17th, badly.

Souvenir!

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Comments

[emperor]

Episcopal duck! :-)