On a fresh and breezy morning, the sky washed clean by the rain and flecked with thin white clouds, we walked out by the West Gate on our way to Harbledown, by many held to be Chaucer’s “little town” which “y-cleped is Bob-up-and-down, Under
the Blee in Canterbury way.” Turning along the London Road to the left, the road to Whitstable running right ahead, we soon found ourselves leaving the main road by a small lane, the Canterbury end of the famous Pilgrims’ Way from Winchester. How ancient this track may be no man knows; but it was in existence long before pilgrimages were dreamed of, before Christianity had come to the country, being utilised probably for the conveyance of metals and merchandise from the west to the east. Soon we have clambered through the mud to the summit of a little hill, from which we gain a wide view of the surrounding country. Before us stands out Bigberry Wood, with its ancient camp; turning to the left, on either side the mill, whose sails are at rest, we see Canterbury spread out in the broad valley, which to the eyes of the earliest wayfarers by this route presented a desolate scene of marsh and woodland. Turning to our right there are the hop fields, with gaunt bare poles; the red roofs of Sidney Cooper’s home; and, farther round, Harbledown and the Hospital of St Nicholas. We go on down the slippery descent, until we reach a brawling stream, spanned by a small wooden bridge; keeping to our right, through the hop field, we soon find a path clambering up toward the hospital, and suddenly before us the stone archway covering the well known by the name of the Black Prince. Primroses are peeping forth out of the abundant winter foliage; but for some reason we cannot call up much interest in this well, ancient though it be, perhaps because of the falsity of the story that connects it with the Black Prince. A few yards higher and we find ourselves behind the long, low building of the hospital, and then we stand within what we may call the precincts. This lazar house was founded by the busy Lanfranc, and the west door of the church is Norman work. The interior of this edifice is well worth visiting; there is about it—though restored—a savour of old-world days and a pathos of suffering, as we think of the leprous men and women who have worshipped here long days ago. The Norman carving on some of the pillars is good, and the roof a fine example of the strength of old work. In the chancel are some old seats, and some benches older still in the body of the church. Old—how old! echoes through our mind as we stand here, and again as we lay our hands on the ancient gnarled tree in the churchyard; how old it all is, this church set high upon the hill, overlooking a vast stretch of valleys and uplands. What sights has this old tree looked down upon, what sounds heard—troops marching by to the war, pilgrims marching by to the shrine of St Thomas (for we are looking down on the road to London). How the coaches toiled up these hills a century ago. And even as we listen, we hear the rush and trumpeting of a motor-car.
The other buildings are of modern years; in the centre of the neat dwelling-houses stands the hall, where various relics are preserved and made into a raree-show, the only one that touched home to us being the old collecting box, which was formerly hung up outside the gate so that passers-by might drop in such coins as they cared to spare. Into this box it is possible that Erasmus dropped his “consolation,” of which he tells us in his description of his walk toward London with Colet, a passage oft quoted but worth quoting again. “....those who journey to London, not long after leaving Canterbury, find themselves in a road at once very hollow and narrow, and moreover the banks on either side are so steep and abrupt, that there is no possibility of escape; nor can the journey be made by any other way. On the left hand of this road is a hospital of a few old men, and as soon as they perceive any horsemen approaching, one of them runs out, sprinkles him with holy water, and presently offers the upper part of a shoe, bound with a brazen rim, and set with a piece of glass resembling a jewel. People kiss this relic, and give some small coin in acknowledgment.... As Cratian[7] rode on my left hand, next to the hospital, he had his sprinkling of water; this he put up with; but, when the shoe was held out, he asked the man what he wanted. He said, that it was the shoe of St Thomas. On that my friend was irritated, and turning to me he said, ‘What, do these brutes imagine that we must kiss every good man’s shoe? Why, by the same rule, they might offer his spittle to be kissed, or what else.’ For my part I pitied the old man, and gave him a small piece of money by way of consolation.... From such matters as cannot be at once corrected I am accustomed to gather whatever good can be found in them.”[8]
The foundation consists of a Master, nine Brethren (one of whom is Prior and another sub-Prior), seven Sisters, and various Pensioners.
We turn back as we go out of the picturesque gate and across the road to the high footpath, and see that still the banks on either side are steep and abrupt. We pass the parish church of St Mildred, and then, descending the hill, there bursts upon us another grand view of Canterbury, the Cathedral domineering over the city. “There are two vast towers that seem to salute the visitor from afar, and make the surrounding country far and wide resound with the wonderful booming of their brazen bells,” so says Erasmus. The towers have changed since his day, but to his eyesight as to ours the view must have been wonderfully impressive; the more so in that as he stood there in this roadway, he could realise as we never can what the sight of those towers meant to the pilgrims who passed him by. He had been to that shrine, and his broad mind, while contemplating some folly which he could not praise, understood that beneath all this to which his companion so strongly objected there lay much of good, and that a ruthless destruction of the tares might prove disastrous also to the wheat.