Canterbury (City Centre) 

 

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Historical notes about the City of Canterbury (City Centre)

Canterbury

Canterbury is so memorable a place from every point of view that the attempt to compress an account of its wonders and interest into the scale dictated by the character of this survey is a most formidable task.

The great church, which is to Anglican Catholicism what St Peter's is to Roman, is truly worthy of the proud position in holds in the affection of Christian people. Of course, no part of it is contemporary with St Augustine, whose work at Canterbury was the starting-point of the greatest revolution in our Island story. Augustine's church succumbed to fire and Danish ravages, and what was left completely vanished in a Norman re-building which in turn largely gave way to later work. But it was in the Norman church that an event took place, the murder of Archbishop Becket, which had such an immense influence on English history, as well as on the fortunes of Cantebury city and Cathedral, that some detailed notice is required, though the writer hopes that the reader will regard it as purely introductory to that entrancing fountain-head of information, Dean Stanley's famous Memorials of Canterbury.

At the end of December 1170, the quarrel between the imperious King Henry II and the even more imperious Becket came to a head, and the passionate sovereign used words which were construed by certain knights who were present - and may possibly be legitimately construed by history - as an invitation to remove the "turbulent priest" from his path. The immediate result was the ghastly murder of the archbishop in a scene which is instinct with all the elements of true drama. The knights burst into the palace and a wordy altercation ensued. They departed but returned the same afternoon and found that Becket had taken refuge in the church. "Refuge" is perhaps hardly the right word for one who answered the suggestion that the cloister door should be secured with the exclamation: "Begone, ye cowards! I charge ye, on your obedience, do not shut the door: what! would you make a Castle of a church!" His assassins came upon him in the north west transept, and in a few moments all was over, the fury of the assailants having been intensified by Becket's unruly and lashing tongue.

The crime had enormous effect on Christendom, and, in popular language, it "made" Canterbury. Becket was canonised, and in due course the pilgrimages to his superb shrine became that prominent feature of English mediaeval life of which Chaucer and others tell us so much.

But it was an almost new church on which this mantle of glory descended. In 1174 the old choir was utterly consumed by fire. Its successor was complete ten years later, but the nave, as we see it now, is a product of the last quarter of the fourteenth century. A hundred years later the edifice was crowned with that Perpendicular masterpiece the central or "Bell Harry" Tower.

The crypt in which Becket's body lay for fifty years after his murder and Henry II was lashed for his share in the crime is a survival of the Norman cathedral and the oldest portion of the present one.

Canterbury Cathedral is also the resting-place of an Englishman prominent in quite another walk of life, Edward the Black Prince. On his death in 1376, so great was his fame and popularity that the monks of Canterbury gave his body the place of honour adjacent to the shrine of St Thomas. Not many years later he was joined by the only English sovereign buried in the church, Henry IV.

In addition to considerable remains of the priory buildings. Canterbury possesses mediaeval edifices of much variety and a wide range of date. Place of honour must certainly be given to the minute Church of St Martin, over which a furious controversy has raged, for the simple reason that it bears evidence of having existed before the arrival of St Augustine and certainly has some Roman work incorporated in the fabric. What would not the feelings of visitors to this intriguing edifice be if only they could be quite certain that they stood on the site where the conversion of Ethelbert was sealed?

St Augustine's Abbey, as is well known, is the story of a real tragedy. It suffered the fate common to all such institutions at the time of the Dissolution: at first converted into a palace, it was ultimately abandoned as a residence, but instead of being allowed to fall into a poetic and picturesque decay, eighty years ago its remains were in use as a king of pleasure-garden and dancing-hall, from which ignoble fate they were rescued by Mr Beresford Hope, who restored what was restorable and founded St Augustine's Missionary College on the site. There are some remains of most of the other ecclesiastical and charitable establishments in the old city.

Of the walls but a small portion is left, and only one of the city gates, the picturesque "West Gate" has survived. The Norman keep of the once formidable castle is still in ese, though in a condition which is perhaps partially accounted for by the state of affairs which has prevailed since a gas company used it for a base, material purposes. As Ingoldsby wrote:

On the whole, fortunately enough, the city has preserved a charmingly old-world air, thanks to the survival of many ancient houses and the refusal of its streets to extend in grith and straighten themselves out in the approved modern fashion; the net result is that while greatly exceeding the vast majority of British Towns in interest, it is still one of the fairest to look upon and exceedingly eloquent to anyone with but a slight knowledge of history and not entirely bereft of imagination.

There are few more familiar and picturesque sights than the twin towers of Reculver, capped with the odd iron structures which still serve their function of a landmark to mariners at sea. Pathetic they are, too, as being substantially all that is left of a most interesting church, other wise destroyed a century ago, some part of which was Saxon and incorporating Roman material. For Reculver is, of course the Roman Regulbium, a fragment of whose mighty wall still survives. Regulbium has been all but washed away by the encroaching sea in the course of the centuries; it was originally guarded the northern entrance to the channel which in those days made the Isle of Thanet an island in more than name. "On the eastern coast of Kent is Thanet, no small island," wrote the Venerable Bede, "containing, according to the measurement used in England, six hundred families (or brides), and separated from the continent by the river Wansumu, which is in breadth about three furlongs, and is passably only in two places, for both its mouths extend into the sea." But it would take a clever man to find anything which separates Thanet from the "continent" in these days, and, curiously enough, the sea has pursued the opposite plan at the southern end of the ancient channel and Regulbium's twin stronghold, Rutupiae, no longer guards a port which was the most famous in Roman Britain.

Rutupiae fell into decay even earlier than Regulbium. As long ago as Camden's time that topographer was able to record that "Time has devoured every trace of it; and, to teach us that cities are as perishable as men, it is now a corn-filed, where, when the corn is grown up, one may see the traces of the streets interesting each other; for wherever the streets have run, now the corn grows thin . . . The site of the City, now ploughed over, discovers evidences of its antiquity, in Roman coins of gold and silver."

But sufficient remains of the walls of the ancient fortress to inspire the most un-impressionable visitor with great respect for the majesty that was Rome. Curiously enough, Richborough had a second blooming during the Great War, when it served as the terminus of a cross-channel ferry; but it would be very rash to expect its revival to be permanent.

So far as the outer world is concerned, Thanet is now mainly a matter of popular watering-places and a haven of refuge for those who wish to combine seaside "amusements" with more bracing air than the South Coast can produce. Of these favourite resorts some might be regarded as modern upstarts, but others are not. Broadstairs, for example, may claim to be soberly up to date, but is a most ancient place. Its Dickens associations are by no means its sole claim to fame. We learn from old records that in Elizabeth's time its pier was granted to the inhabitants "for the good of the commonwealth," and that its ancient chapel of St Mary (which still survives after numerous transformation) contained a wondrous image, Our Lady of Broadstairs, so holy and renowned that passing ships lowered their top-sails as a mark of veneration. But the annun mirabilis of the place must have been 1574, when all the world talked of a monster fish which expired on the shore here after being stranded for twenty-four hours. Some idea of the fish's dimensions can be gathered from old Kilburn's account of the occurrence: "His roaring was heard above a mile . . .One of his eyes was more than a cart and six horses could draw, and a man stood upright in the place from whence it was taken . . .His tongue was fifteen feet long: his liver was two car-loads; and a man might creep into his nostrils."

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Historic images from around the City of Canterbury

This small selection of historic images of Canterbury (City Centre) are from our British National Image Library. You may click on the thumbnail pictures to view larger versions and read what information we have regarding the image.

Bomb Damage to Green Court

Bomb Damage

The Rev. John Darlington

Miss Lilian Farrar

Lady Conygham

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Public Events in and around Canterbury

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Hotels, Apartments and B&B's in Canterbury

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 Cedar House Apartments 

 

 Ebury Serviced Apartments 

 

 Abode Canterbury 

 

 Castle House Hotel 

 

 House Of Agnes 

 

 Iffin Farmhouse 

 

 Peregrine House 

 

 The City of Canterbury