Walking the Augustine Camino

with Mary's Meals - Day 1

I recently returned from a wonderful walking pilgrimage on the Augustine Camino in Kent, starting at Rochester Cathedral with the fantastic group you can see in the picture above. Rather than post a few pictures of the backs of the walkers in front of me, I thought I’d create a series of posts for anyone who might be considering a walking pilgrimage, specifically on the Augustine Camino. I’ll show where we walked each day but will also take a few historical, literary, and theological detours along the way. So here’s Day 1: Rochester Cathedral to Aylesford Priory.

Rochester is a fascinating place. A former Roman town, it commands an important crossing of the River Medway on the route from Dover to London. Directly opposite the cathedral is this wonderful Norman castle, which was besieged by King John and Simon de Montfort (at different times). If you look closely at the photograph, you’ll notice that one of the towers is semi-circular while the others are square. There’s a simple reason for this architectural curiosity: King John successfully defeated the rebels who were holed up in the castle by digging a tunnel under the tower, setting fire to the wooden props, and bringing the whole thing crashing to the ground. The semi-circular tower is the new, improved version.

But the man I’d really come to see is enshrined in this great sculpture over the cathedral’s west door. Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester, deserves a post of his own (so watch this space). All I’ll say here is that he not only built (or, at least, greatly extended) the cathedral, but he also built Rochester Castle and the White Tower of the Tower of London. None of this is mentioned in the Vita Gundulfi, which concentrates on Gundulf’s sanctity and charitable works, both of which are well worth exploring, but they make Gundulf a fascinating figure in the 21st century. Two other points are worth making about Gundulf here: he was a close friend of St Anselm, having also arrived in England after the Norman Conquest from the monastery of Bec, and his name, in an age which knew nothing of regularised spellings, is sometimes spelt Gandulf! (But forget any idea that he is the model of Tolkien’s Gandalf: Tolkien found his wizard’s name in the Old Norse Völuspá.) As the hobbits discovered in The Lord of the Rings, it can be a struggle to get away from home, so let’s pop briefly into the cathedral and then get on our way.

Here’s our wonderful guide, Andrew Kelly, creator of the Augustine Camino, in front of an amazing fresco by Sergei Fyodorov inside the cathedral. Below an image of Christ being baptised in the River Jordan, you can see King Ethelbert of Kent being baptised by St Augustine at Canterbury. Here at the beginning of our pilgrimage was the beginning of Christian England. (I’m choosing my words carefully because, of course, there’s also a great deal to be said about Roman and Irish Christianity in the British Isles.)

And now it really is time to get going. Setting the pace here is Fr Ted, our canine pilgrim, followed closely by Fr Neil, from St John Fisher Church, Rochester, who said Mass for us each day. In the background is the River Medway. To the east, Men and Maids of Kent: to the west, Kentish Men and Kentish Maids. I am, proudly, a Kentish Man.

We walked along the river to Borstal and then up onto the chalk downs, past the wonderfully-named Shoulder of Mutton Wood, and on to Wouldham Common where we found a good spot for a well earned lunch break and a soothing of the feet. (No, Mary didn’t walk the whole way barefooted.)

And then, as if to stop me talking for too long about the chalk ecology of the downs and my parents’ unfortunate encounter with a dene hole, the heavens opened. We walked in the rain. We prayed the Rosary in the rain. It was glorious. Past Burham and downhill to Eccles - sturdy footwear definitely needed for this section of the walk - and finally to Aylesford.

Substack is hurrying me along but a real joy of the day was the rewriting of time. We found a natural, walking rhythm rather than an electronic one. We walked and talked and listened. We paid attention. (For more on all this see A Philosophy of Walking by Frédéric Gros, The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew Crawford, and anything by Simone Weil) There was no rush to arrive at Aylesford Priory (apart from the lure of the tea shop). We set aside the rush and rigidity of our everyday lives for a day.

We were pilgrims, not tourists, so we gathered for Mass in the Cloister Chapel of St Jude and the Infant of Prague. The simplicity of the setting suited the day perfectly. It was a lovely end to our first day’s walking.

Except it wasn’t quite the end of the day. In the spirit of Chaucer and Belloc, we wandered down to a pub on the banks of the river after Mass. The pilgrimage was underway and now the day was done.