Pilgrim's Progress

Six centuries after Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, pilgrimages are booming. John Walsh joins Christians, pagans, atheists and Buddhists as they make their way along Kent’s holy road.

It’s 7am on a chilly summer morning in the Kent village of Barham. In St John the Baptist Church, things are stirring. Twenty pilgrims have roused

themselves from a bone-numbing night, with only blankets and mats between their limbs and the church’s 14th century, stone floor. One or two have tried dozing on the wooden pews, but the danger of rolling off at 3am has made sleep impossible.

We are on a pilgrimage to Canterbury from Saltwood Castle, Kent – home to the late Alan Clark MP. Saltwood was also where the four knights started their fateful journey to murder Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. The pilgrimage follows in their footsteps.

That early morning, the pilgrims re-packed their rucksacks and grabbed a rudimentary breakfast of coffee and granola bars beside the baptismal font. In the aisle, Gary the teacher has been inspired to write a poem in his Ryman notebook. Bridget and Ann, beautiful young sisters, have joined the Portaloo queue near the lychgate. George and DeForest sit in the church entrance with their staves, discussing climate change. Then Saffron has an idea.

‘I’m off to roll in the dew to greet the morning,’ she says to the women around her. ‘Who’s coming?’ Her suggestion is greeted with delight, and six of them troop round the back of the church. In three minutes, a shrieking can be heard from the ladies as they roll naked on the wet grass, feeling the chilly dew on their awakening flesh and photographing each other with iPhone 7s.

Back in the church, re-clad in jumpers, jeans and dungarees, the dew-bathers listen as our co-leader, Guy, explains the significance of summer rituals in medieval times.