
CanterburyPilgrims
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Augustine Camino
The Augustine Camino is a new pilgrimage route created by Andrew Kelly celebrating the arrival of St Augustine in Kent at Pegwell Bay, Ramsgate, and his journey to Canterbury. He built his first church here in the year 597 after nearly abandoning his mission. According to Bede, having travelled but a short distance they "were seized with craven terror, and began to think of returning home, rather than proceed to a barbarous, fierce, and unbelieving nation, to whose very language they were strangers". Chap. XXIII - Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England.
Today the Augustine Camino is designed as a 7 day pilgrimage of roughly 10 miles a day with accommodation along the way, and pilgrims can visit the Carmelite friars at Aylesford Priory and St Jude's shrine in Faversham, and the Benedictine nuns at Minster Abbey. The route links the first two English cathedrals of Canterbury and Rochester, with many lovely rural churches to get your stamps, and all the miles you walk will be accepted for the Camino Ingles in Spain.
There is also a memorial which symbolises where St Augustine gave his first sermon to King Ethelbert. Bede writes that the King insisted the first meeting would be held in the open air. "For he had taken precaution that they should not come to him in any house, lest, by so coming, according to an ancient superstition, if they practised any magical arts, they might impose upon him, and so get the better of him."
Chap. XXV - Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England.

The memorial is a 45min walk from Minster Abbey, which keeps a relic of St Mildred. The Abbey is a beautiful place and a highlight of the Augustine Camino. It is a thriving Catholic convent and you can join in worship there where the nuns sing to the accompaniment of wonderful zither.
Chartham Hatch Orchard © Liz Garnett
