Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral is probably the most famous Church in England, and not without reason. Few historic buildings can rival it in majestetic beauty and sheer size (the length is 157 m and the tower is 72 m high).

The history of the cathedral dates back to the first Archbishop of Canterbury, St Augustine, who arrived Kent in 597 AD in order to convert to locals to Christianity.

Augustine´s original building now lies beneath the floor of the nave. The church was extensively rebuilt and enlarged by the Saxons and in 1077 the archbishop Lanfranc had it completely rebuilt as a Norman church. Over the last 900 years there have been numerous additions to the church, but parts of the quire and some of the windows and their stained glass date from the 12th century.

 The Cathedral´s history page tells us about the sad fate of Archbishop Becket:

The best known event in the Cathedral's history was the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170. Canterbury, always on the medieval pilgrim route to Rome, became an end in itself, as thousands came to worship at Becket's tomb, especially after his canonization in 1173. Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrims in his poem, The Canterbury Tales, were by no means unique. They represented the hundreds of thousands who travelled to the Cathedral to pray, repent or be healed at his shrine.