Canterbury Tales

This article makes me reflect on how all rural development does not reflect progress – charting the change over the last 600 years from the country inn to the seedy motel. It tells how a Chaucer enthusiast is retracing his hero,s steps on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury

“As Mr Eliot and his friends pass through the towns and locations featured in the poem – from Southwark to Dartford and Rochester to Faversham – they will recite the tales. There is no insistence on an authentic retelling: the cast may “rap” the stories or add a modern twist if they wish.

Not surprisingly, the landscape the modern-day pilgrims will pass through will bear little resemblance to the pre-industrial Kent that Chaucer would have known. The Knight’s Tale in the poem is told at the site of a stream and pond – the Watering of St Thomas; today, inevitably, there’s a Tesco on this site. 

Watling Street, the great Roman road heading south-east out of London, which the pilgrims would have taken, is now the A2. And a succession of Travel Lodges and B&B’s are more likely to provide respite for the group at night, as opposed to the inns and taverns of the 14th century.”