Читать книгу The North Downs Way. National Trail from Farnham to Dover онлайн

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From the A281 at Shalford Park cross with care and continue heading east along a residential street, Pilgrims’ Way. Rising gently the road curves slightly left, with a row of lime trees on the right-hand side. When these end veer right along a surfaced drive which soon ends in a small car park. Continue ahead, pass to the left of the white-painted Chantry Cottage, and enter Chantry Wood on a rough track. This mostly edges the wood, with NDW waymarks at path and track junctions. At the end of an open but fence-lined section, come to more woods, and at a crosstracks you maintain direction. The track has now narrowed to a bridleway. Eventually join a stony path and continue ahead, still within the woods.

The Pilgrims’ Way refers to the route commonly thought to have been taken by a penitent Henry II following the murder of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, and subsequently walked by countless pilgrims and recorded in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The route is 118 miles (190km) long, and links Winchester with Canterbury. Today much of the Pilgrims’ Way is paved road, but there are long stretches of footpath and trackway too, some of which have been adopted by the North Downs Way.