The English ports of Sandwich and Dover were granted licenses to sail to France or to Compostela, and there is evidence that pilgrims walked from London and East Anglia to the coast, via Rochester and Canterbury. 

Many Londoners undertook the long journey to Compostela visiting European shrines on the way, and some would have passed though Canterbury. In the London Museum’s collection of over 1,000 pilgrim souvenirs, at least 34 include the iconography of scallop shells.  

Of these, around 15 medieval tokens – including badges, pendants and ampulla (tiny containers) – can be linked to the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. These tokens are emblematic of that spiritual expedition, and how London has always been connected to different parts of the world. 

In 1434 alone, approximately  2,310 pilgrims were licensed to sail to Spain from English ports. 

Many passed through Canterbury on their way to the ports of Sandwich and Dover.

Surviving licences show that ships were registered and authorised to carry pilgrims to Santiago in the Jubilee year of 1434, from Sandwich and Dover Kent and a remarkable number of English pilgrims received royal permission and were officially licensed to travel to the shrine of St James in Galicia. Surviving records from the Patent Rolls of Henry VI indicate that in that year alone approximately 2,310 pilgrims received royal permission to sail for Spain, marking one of the high points of English devotion to Santiago de Compostela during the fifteenth century. 

 

The licences identify Dover and Sandwich on the Kent coast, as significant points of departure for pilgrims from London, Kent and East Anglia.

 

Ships registered in these ports were authorised to carry pilgrims to Spain, reflecting their continuing role in England’s maritime pilgrimage routes before the later decline of Sandwich’s harbour and Dover’s eventual rise as a major port. 

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Main Ports of Departure:

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From licences and related records, we know the main ports authorised for pilgrimage to Compostela were: 

• Southampton 

• Plymouth (and Dartmouth) 

• Bristol 

• Portsmouth 

• London 

• Sandwich and Dover (Kent) 

 

 

Dover was certainly one of the ports used, especially for pilgrims from London, Kent, and East Anglia. 

 

Pilgrims would have walked from London, via Rochester and Canterbury, to sail from Dover and there are many churches dedicated to St James throughout Kent, especially the 12th C church of St James in Dover, and the church of St James the Great in the village of Staple.

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It would be lovely to walk to Compostela by starting in England along this ancient way.