As I might have mentioned before, the hill down to Canterbury from the camp site to the city centre is pretty steep. As I was still suffering from the mild dizziness that accompanies my migraines, the journey was a little disorienting but we arrived at the church of St. Dunstan's-without-the-Westgate ready to find out more about Thomas More's head. Let me explain; on the first night in town we had read a sign on the church that mentioned its main claim to fame: Thomas More's head could be found within the church. The erstwhile Lord Chancellor's head was apparently rescued from London Bridge, where it had been displayed in the manner customarily reserved for traitors, by his daughter and brought to the church. Keen to find out more, we went inside to be greeted by a charming and welcoming lady who described herself as a Holy Duster. She quickly disabused Sarah of the idea that we could actually see More's head but pointed to a plaque on the floor, under which the boiled head of the author of Utopia was buried.
Moving on, we found a more thinly populated city centre compared to the previous day. Perhaps this was due to the weather, which was already threatening to break out into a light drizzle, or maybe it was down to the relatively early hour. I noticed that the busker had gone, probably in A&E trying to remove an inflatable guitar, and this lent a more peaceful air to the place.
First stop was always going to be Canterbury Cathedral. Taking full advantage of my National Union of Students card to take £1 off the admission price, we entered the cathedral precincts. The entry price of £9.50 seemed a little steep until we read that it costs £18,000 a day for the maintenance of the cathedral; staggering. In any case, the view when entering the nave was worth the fee. An audible 'wow' escaped my lips to the amusement of one of the gold-sashed guides standing in the entrance. The place itself is vast, befitting the centre of the Anglican church, and a sense of reverence emanated from every corner. Descending to the crypt, the visitor comes across the place where St. Thomas-a-Becket was slain by knights in a tragic case of misunderstood royal instructions. A plaque informed us that Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Ronald Runcie had prayed together on this spot in 1982 in a spirit of ecumenical togetherness. The crypt itself held a surprise: an Anthony Gormley sculpture constructed from nails taken from the restored roof of the cathedral and suspended above the original tomb of Becket. This feature represents the human body; in the artist's words 'We are all the temporary inhabitants of a body. It is our house, instrument and medium.'
We briefly visited the (free) Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, which combines an art gallery with a public library. There were a few interesting pieces in the building. Particularly impressive were the exhibits from the East Kent Art Society; a cut above the standard of most local art societies. Having exhausted the possibilities available without paying £4.50 for the temporary exhibition, we repaired to Number 12 restaurant for tea and blueberry muffins. Then we wandered around town for a while before eating a filling ciabatta at a place simply called Brunch. I don't know whether living in a similarly styled cathedral city made me desensitised to the charms of Canterbury or whether it was the, by now swelling, tourist hordes but I was a little underwhelmed by the city itself.
With the rain threatening to intensify we decided to visit the Canterbury Tales Experience. Although rather cheesy, it managed to stay the right side of educational and informative. The Experience consisted of a tour through several rooms containing life-size models of figures from Chaucer's great work. The visitor is provided with a handset (available in a variety of languages) through which the stories of the Knight, Miller, Wife of Bath, Priest and Pardoner are told within the appropriate backdrop. Listening to these tales, I was suddenly made aware that the Carry On films had an ancient provenance. On the way out of the final room, you inevitably emerge into the shop. An assistant was on hand to help you discover the history of your name. Sarah's exotic family surname could not be found on the computer but, after ascertaining that it was the Welsh rather than Irish Hughes that was required, a brief history of my family name appeared on the screen. As it did not conform to my created family history of heroic Celtic warriors bravely defending their homeland against the invading Saxon hordes, I spurned the opportunity of spending £20 on a printed copy.
Emerging into a light drizzle, we did a quick tour of some of the quieter streets before alighting upon Mrs Jones' Kitchen where we ordered tea and cakes. My chocolate tart was superb but the Earl Grey cake that Sarah ordered was a little disappointing apparently. Mind you, not ordering the chocolate item on the menu was a basic schoolgirl error on her part; a fact that I reminded her of in my best Alan Bennett.
There was a fantastic old bookshop just off the High Street where I spent some time trying to find research material for my book on Thomas Cromwell (fruitlessly). This was the sort of place in which I could spend all day, with it's mixture of up-to-date publications and older works on a variety of subjects. Some of the more venerable or precious works were kept behind glass near to the owner's desk.
The £8 entry fee to the Canterbury Heritage Museum was an outlay too far, so we decided to make our way home back up the massive hill via a small wine shop that we had noticed on the way in to the city. The owner was incredibly knowledgeable and the Viognier that he suggested turned out to be every bit as good as he said it would be. He gave us equally sound advice about the local brews on offer and we selected a couple of Canterbury Tale themed beers to take back for my father-in-law.
After struggling back up the hill laden with wine, beer and food we arrived back at the camp site to find an array of Morgan sports cars lined up along one side of the site. The Morgan Owners' Club were apparently holding a show in the vicinity over the weekend and some of their number, all incidentally demonstrating the strength of the grey pound, had decided to camp at Neal's Place. The throaty roar, or annoying racket depending on your point of view, of their arrival filled the camp site until all seven had assembled. The Dutch couple in the field opposite the van had moved on and been replaced with a German vehicle seemingly developed as a by-product of the space programme. A couple also arrived next to the Germans with a teenage daughter. The father appeared to regard the periods in between cigarettes as mere filling; I counted four in the first fifteen minutes. The teenage daughter seemed determined not to betray her generation by offering any kind of assistance to her parents as they laboured with the tent. Mind you they were probably similarly amused later to see the pair of us sitting down to a postprandial game of scrabble, with Pennies from Heaven crooning in the background. Although it was what is known in sporting circles as a dead rubber, by dint of my 2-0 lead in the series, it was probably the most keenly contested. Only in the later stages could I stride away to a well-deserved series whitewash, a fact over which I did not gloat at all.
It was with some sadness that we assembled the bed for the final time on this trip, but there was also a feeling of looking forward to being back home on the following evening. We planned to take in a trip to Sissinghurst as part of a leisurely journey back to Chichester via Worthing. It turned out to be an eventful day.
No comments:
Post a Comment