Paradise in the Garden of England

The view has changed since Chaucer’s day, but the important things survive

- Fiona Reynolds

THE great towers of Canterbury Cathedral soar skywards from every direction as they have for centuries. Canterbury was the pilgrimage destination and, as Chaucer reminds us, it was the beauty of an April spring that ‘longen folk to goon on pilgrimages’. Longing for such beauty myself, I arrive by train in the city, dump my bags and set off from the cathedral to walk along the River Stour.

My walk is inspired by Walter Crane’s 1894 painting of Canterbury Cathedral from the meadows. The glittering, soaring cathedral sits almost alone amid water meadows occupied by nothing but a few grazing horses and surrounded by the diminutive domestic buildings of the city.