Bored at home, so decided to do another short walk from my house to Shepherdswell, around 13 miles. Packed my bag, said bye to the wife and off I went!
I live just outside the walls in the parish of St Dunstans, so today starts with my usual stroll into the city where I usually do my shopping! Saw a helicopter in the sky coming into land(!) The wife later informed me it was landing on the bridge in order to pick up a woman who had been run over by a bus! That road is lethal in places...
Said hello to the cathedral, thronged as usual with tonnes of tourists who have very little consideration for the people who actually live here in Canterbury. So I do my usual brusque thing and shove my way through on my way to the Burgate.
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| St Thomas Catholic Church |
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| St Augustine's Abbey |
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| Alms houses |
Cross at the lights and walk around to St Augustine's Abbey where the first few Archbishops of Canterbury are buried, along with a few Kings of Kent. It's a fascinating place to wander around if you're ever in the area.
Continue over the road and through to Barton, before heading up onto the fields which mark the rest of my walk.
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| View from Barton |
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| Guess the song in my head at this point? |
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| Apples! |
Just a short walk through some more fields and hedgerows, we come upon the pretty village of Patrixbourne, which has some lovely Oast houses and a nice church. The road into and out was a wee bit busy though and have to say, none of the villages I went through today had any kind of pavements!
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| Patrixbourne |
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| St Mary's, Patrixbourne |
Come off the road onto a nice stroll for a few hundred metres with some nice views, spoilt a little by the A2. Thus we come across Higham Park, home of the engineer who made the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang race cars.
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| Higham Park |
After Higham Park, it becomes a devastatingly boring plod though fields after fields after fields until we reach Womenswold.
Womenswold is a very pretty village, and I took a break there for five minutes, giving my toes a nice stretch!
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| Beacon |
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| School bell at Womenswold |
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| Church of St Margaret of Antioch |
From Womenswold, it's a leisurely slog, although my unfit feet are starting to ache, to Shepherdswell. It's been a nice little walk, but did have some dull parts! Those fields were, boring!
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| View of Thanet |
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| Certainly see why they're the chalk downs! |
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| East Kent Railway |
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| St Andrews Church, Shepherdswell |
