We’ll be back at Dover, physically this week on Friday for the ‘Dover at Night’ festival around the town, and because that will form the main part of this week’s blog, it is coming out later in the week than usual. Additionally, I thought I would provide a short report on the ‘pilgrimage’ exhibition meeting at Eastbridge that took place on Monday, and working chronologically that will come first.

On Monday people from numerous groups across the city and with a range of interests in pilgrimage – past, present and future, joined Nigel Fletcher-Jones, a trustee of Eastbridge, and Lee Funnell, a member of the hospital’s administration team, at the hospital. Firstly, it was great to see and to hear that the conservation and refurbishment work is not far off finished, which means this iconic medieval building will again be open to visitors this year alongside the Franciscan Gardens.

A significant part of the discussion was on the proposed exhibition on pilgrimage at Eastbridge because as a medieval hospital for poor pilgrims this aspect of the house’s long history fits extremely well within the current renewed interest generally in pilgrimage. For while Canterbury was and is a centre for pilgrims, not solely for St Thomas of Canterbury although from the 1170s onwards he was a draw internationally, but also for SS Augustine, Martin of Tours, Thomas More, Dunstan, Alphage and Mildred, it is equally a starting point or sacred place on the pilgrims’ journey, whether we are talking about Matthew Paris’ 13^th-century itinerary or the modern pilgrim map that can be downloaded for the Via Francigena. Moreover, we considered how this proposed exhibition would complement other centres for pilgrimage around the city, obviously the cathedral but equally St Augustine’s Abbey and the church of St Martin which together form Canterbury’s UNESCO World Heritage Site. Also important are the other two archiepiscopal hospitals, especially St Nicholas’ with its Becket connection through Henry II and its medieval artefacts, St Dunstan’s church with again its Henry II link and its role as a pilgrimage centre for St Thomas More, as well as the RC church with its various relics, including that of Becket. With all of this in mind, we considered such matters as who might be our individual and collective audiences across the city, how we might engage with them most effectively and enjoyably from their perspective, and the range and type of materials we have available in Canterbury to achieve these goals.

It was good to be able to report that a number of promising ideas were mooted, and I think the group as a whole will meet again soon to consider matters for this year, especially in terms of the Canterbury Medieval Pageant in July, as well as forming sub-groups where there are specific shared interests – so watch this space!

Now to last night at Dover where people linked to the Centre for Kent History and Heritage at CCCU were in St Mary’s church, Dover Museum and St Edmund’s chapel. The largest contingent was in St Mary’s church where my team comprised two PhD students Kieron Hoyle and Jason Mazzocchi, with Benedict Fisher, whose model of how the River Dour had been harnessed in Tudor times to try to flush out sand from Dover Harbour drew lots of interest. Indeed Martin Crowther, one of the ‘Dover at Night’ organisers and leader of the Maison Dieu project, will be using the model at future educational events in Dover.

Carolyn Oulton and Michelle Crowther were at Dover Museum with their ‘Kent Maps Online’ project with several Dover features and especially Michelle’s piece on the website on the River Dour through history. When I dropped by about half-way through the evening the place was very busy, and they said they had had considerable interest in their stall. If you want to check out Michelle’s piece and lots more fascinating material about people and places in Dover and more broadly in Kent, please see: https://www.kent-maps.online/

Sonia Overall and Diane Heath were at St Edmund’s chapel, which was in medieval times a mortuary chapel and site of pilgrimage for the Maison Dieu, being dedicated to St Edmund of Abingdon and having a relic of his friend St Richard of Chichester. For Bishop Richard had died at the Maison Dieu while on a preaching crusade and his entrails were seen to become miracle-working relics of the bishop. Very appropriately ‘Death’ was one of the puppets there, and as well as the play composed by Sonia called ‘Death and the Carpenter‘ told by the puppeteers, there were people dressed in medieval costume from Dover Castle, including members of English Heritage staff, thereby epitomising the collegiate nature of the whole celebration of Dover’s history.

Returning to St Mary’s church, we were in the Lady Chapel and next to us was the stall from Canterbury Cathedral Archives. Having set up our 6 ‘Medieval Dover – From Cradle to the Grave’ pop-up banners on the altar step: https://ckhh.org.uk/our-work/project/medieval-dover  we laid out the ‘Kent’s Medieval Communities’ table with a plan of Dover’s Tudor harbour and associated timeline for Benedict’s model, as well as two illustrated handouts for visitors: ‘Medieval Dover – From Cradle to the Grave’ and ‘Gone (freshwater) Fishing – in Medieval Dover’, a copy of Dr Claire Bartram’s Imagining Dover, an IHR Centenary initiative: https://ckhh.org.uk/our-work/project/imagining-dover and two CKHH blog posts on ‘Maritime Dover’ to offer visitors ideas about the Centre’s Dover-related activities.

We also took the opportunity to show and tell visitors about upcoming Centre events. In chronological order through to the end of May these are: the Tudors and Stuarts History Weekend between Friday 25^th April to Sunday 27^th April, which has lots of great speakers and is in order to raise funds for the Ian Coulson Memorial Postgraduate Award Fund. This Fund aids those who want to study Kent history topics for a higher research degree at CCCU and among the growing number of beneficiaries are Jason and Kieron.

Moving into May and with a focus on the Kent’s Maritime Communities project, Professor Craig Lambert and I are planning a project study day and web launch entitled ‘Kent and Europe, 1450–1640: Merchants, Mariners, Shipping and Defence’ (this is also the title of the project team’s new book) on Saturday 10 May at the Community Cinema in Dover Museum. Please save the date if you are interested, and speakers will include Kieron and Jason who will speak on their doctoral research regarding early modern Dover and Faversham respectively. Then Craig will give a brief overview of the project followed by talks from Drs Robert Blackmore, Gary Baker and me, the other team members, on our respective chapters and Craig will finish by launching the website and showing a couple of examples from it. A full programme and details concerning booking this open event will be available shortly.

Then for the end of May it will be the 2025 Becket Lecture on Tuesday 27 May at 7pm (wine reception from 6.30pm) in the Michael Berry Lecture Theatre, Old Sessions House, CCCU, Canterbury by Professor Rachel Koopmans. Her lecture is entitled ‘Murder, Miracles, Liturgy, and Stained Glass: Thomas Becket and Benedict of Peterborough’ and the Becket Lecture will be a book launch for Rachel’s new edition of Benedict of Peterborough’s St Thomas miracle collection. The lecture is free and please see more details at: https://ckhh.org.uk/events/details/annual-becket-lecture-2025

All this material spilled onto our second table, but there was still room for our eager young and not so young colourers of wooden fish, although I doubt (m)any of these brightly coloured specimens would have survived long in the Dour in medieval times, having made a rather nice meal for the resident pike. Nevertheless, this family-friendly activity obviously caught the attention of most of the almost 150 children who visited St Mary’s because by the end of the evening the majority of the fish had gone, children happily dangling their prized specimen as they left the church. Many of the over 250 adults who came to investigate the displays and ask lots of questions seemed to be equally enthusiastic. Moreover, the handouts were all popular, while some visitors from the time they spent at the Centre’s stall read all the information on the exhibition banners and we answered questions on these too, while a couple of people remembered them from the ‘Working with Wills’ workshops from the summer of 2023.

Thus, by the time we packed everything up just after 9pm, having had our first visitors at about 4pm even before the festival officially opened, it was obvious that the event had been yet again a great success, demonstrating that there is an appetite to discover more about the town’s history by local people and those from east Kent more widely. So well done to all concerned and especially to Martin Crowther and his fellow organisers!

Next week I’ll be moving inland because Kaye Sowden, another of the Kent History Postgraduates, will be giving a presentation at the Kent Archives on Monday on Sir Edward Dering, one might say lord of Pluckley, as well as being a MP, Lieutenant of Dover Castle and having literary and antiquarian interests, and Jason has said he’ll provide a report because sadly I’ll have to miss it.