cantware The dwellers of Kent + burh Old English fortified place. Population - 55,240.
Sep 2019
Wetherspoon™s - The Thomas Ingoldsby : The pen name of a 19th-century humorist from Canterbury and better than The Richard Barham (3/5).
There's no avoiding it, whatever your direction, so let's nip this elephant in the bud.
Anglican Church HQ and the reason the word 'archbishop' is only ever heard in a sentence with the word 'Canterbury' not too far behind.
Largely 12th-century following a fashionable, yet intimidating, Gothic reconstruction, the site dates to nearly 700 years earlier than that.
Notable tombs include Edward The Black Prince, last seen in Leeds, and King Henry IV, last seen with leprosy, allegedly, as well as many other medieval movers and shakers.
Still the destination for Christian pilgrims worldwide, of course it's a World Heritage Site and it'll all be nice when it's finished.
It's a gift-aided £10 a pop for access all areas but hey, when in, the Anglican equivalent of, Rome, eh?
When Geoffrey Chaucer sat down and inked his quill in 1387, little did he know his scribblings would still be under scrutiny over 600 years later.
The Canterbury Tales, of course, a sprawling, proto-screenplay for a road movie, really, although it's no Midnight Run.
Scholarly types are undecided as to whether the work is actually complete, opening the door for a Canterbury Tales II unlike any Midnight Run II, most probably.
That's a shame because De Niro's in, he'll do anything, these days, although there's some work required to rewrite him out of retirement. The MacGuffin would have to be manufactured around "The Duke"'s daughter or even granddaughter, say, who has an unpaid parking ticket or something and what's that? You're oot?
You can experience the pilgrims' japes, recreated in Canterbury's medieval passages thanks to some waxworks and becostumed students or at least you could have done in 2019.
Sadly, the decision to close this 30-year-old attraction was taken in April 2020, all down to tourist numbers tanking and that all down to you-know-what, no doubt.
Another source cites the reason as the previous year's closure of the city's century-old and family-run department store.
It's unlikely that visitors were making a day of it by doubling up on this particular combo, however, and I'm free to other suggestions. No, this only caught the eye because of a font not seen since the '50s and the name is distantly familiar, relatively speaking.
They're not the only casualties, Canterbury Tails, seriously, has also gone the way. 76% of reviewers may have liked Chaucer's book but that's less than the advising trippers who enjoyed tucking into their platefuls of fish & chips.
The name kind of worked for a piece of cod but not so well for a pie or a battered sausage and actually works much, much better for a local, pet-grooming service.
Meanwhile, back at the cathedral, access is via an ornate gateway to the grounds and then one that's arguably even more ornater into the actual interior.
There's no sign inside of Thomas à Becket, however, famously murdered here and although everybody knows the name, no one knows when or even why?
Despite being a Londoner, Chaucer is inextricably linked to Canterbury but there's another famous scribe whose provenance proves to be purer.
Local lad Christopher, 'Kit' to his friends, Marlowe, a forerunner to William Shakespeare and considered by many to be better if not quite so prolific. There's no sign of the man himself rather a statue and statuettes of characters from his best-known works.
No mention, neither, of him being famously finished off in a bar room 'brawl', which amounts to more than a 'brawl', really. Was he murdered by the church, the state or even Sir Walter Raleigh?
His provocative outbursts on subjects such as the church, the state and homosexuality made him the Jeremy Clarkson of his day who himself has also gone and wrote some books.
It's not being suggested, by the way, it definitely isn't, that if you ever see Jeremy Clarkson in a bar, it definitely isn't.
Meanwhile, back at the cathedral, there are stairs down to what is believed to be called a 'cloister'. Classic, fan-vaulted ceiling, for sure, and an enclosed garden made for a meditative milieu for medieval monks to muddle through the day.
Some restoration has been required but it's nearly all Norman and some signage requests that he, and everyone else for that matter, don't carve their name into the crumbling plaster, by order of the Dean and Chapter, seriously.
Not unexpectedly, the high street is a right eye-catcher with the original buildings mostly repurposed for the modern day.
Lloyds Bank™ is well represented as is Caffè Nero™, accommodated in an Elizabethan structure advertising its date of birth as 1579!
That, incidentally, is nearly the same amount you can expect to pay in Canterbury for a Skinny Caramelatte, a Coconut Milk White Chocolate Mocha and a couple of almond biscotti, thanks.
Meanwhile, back at the cathedral, it has been realised this is almost a city within a city with its own recreational areas and even an infirmary.
The last admissions, however, were all injured invaders called Norman, probably.
All significant settlements, all of them, ever, are next to water, normally, and even the cavemen had figured that was a good idea with evidence of some early axes unearthed.
The water in question is the Great Stour, two of them, actually, one of which winds under the high street providing a Venetian-eye view of old Durovernum.
Not that Northumberland can deliver on the medieval city front, the nearest thing to anything comparable is York, of course. They may have a minster and a maze of lanes laid out in the middle ages but nothing as fabled as the folkloric Thomas à Becket.
Still, at least they've got a Fenwick™s.