Historical tour of Canterbury

Friday was the tour of historical sights of Canterbury and the Christ Church Cathedral. Kathy, Megan and I were a 2 minutes late getting there but Erin was the last to show up. We didn’t think it would take that long to get to the reception hall at school, but somehow it took a little longer. All the kids got emails from Jim our chaperone, to arrive 15 minutes early, to not talk while the tour guide was talking and also to hussle up with the picture taking. Only one applied to me that day, but it was weird because I felt like I was back in the tour group for high school. Except no one was stupid enough to get hit by a taxi/car….yet! :D Our total of 3 school groups were too big that we split up into two groups.
We first went to St. Augustine’s Priory and sat in the pews to hear Martin tell us some facts about it. Queen Bertha, a Frankish princess & practicing Christian, was given the church by her husband King Ethlebert. She went to worship there with her Bishop Liudhard. This is known as the oldest church in England and is still being used today. If you really want to know more of the history of the Abbey and the Priory, I found this brilliant website that has all of the info. I just thought it would be better to just give the highlights than every single fact, most of which I can hardly remember hehe! Sorry, there is a reason why Ben is the history buff in my family and not I. http://volokh.com/sasha/canterbury.html
After the priory we toured the gravesite and then headed down the hill to the King’s School, which is a little ways down the hill from a prison. Huh. Weird to put a prion between a church and a school. Oohh, as I’m looking at the website, they show some great pictures of the crypt in the Cathedral too! And better pictures of the Canterbury Tales Tour than what I was able to take.
After touring the outside area of the Cathedral, we took a break for lunch and were to meet up at the Starbucks outside of the Cathedral. Erin, Megan, Carol and I went to a little Italian/French styled restaurant next to Erin’s internet café where you can use the internet for however long you like with buying one drink. We all got hot chocolates because our hands were freezing cold. I ordered a pizza with mushrooms and it was delicious! We thought about getting a coffee at the Starbucks café, but we were kind of just looking around the other stores to kill some time after lunch. I can always come back to the Starbucks, where I might add that my favorite actor Orlando Bloom has been to :o) I pass by the place almost daily.
Into the Cathedral we went and it was simply amazing! There are still services going on today and performances by choirs on Saturday nights sometimes too! Katerina said that she will take me to one of them! :D The whole congregation was filled with rows of chairs set up for the performance Sat. night. The ceilings were huge and the choir was so beautiful too! We actually got to hear a bit of the organ player practicing some music. It was brilliant and so loud that Martin (our tour guide) had to stop talking sometimes because he couldn’t be heard.
Martin led us down to a side area where there was a tiny chapel that was gated off. But the area outside of the chapel was where Sir Thomas Becket was murdered. He wasn’t supposed to be murdered, it was just that King Henry’s knights took more of a firmer hand of ridding Henry of his meddlesome priest. Thomas Becket was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to 1170. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. He engaged in a conflict with King Henry II over the rights and privileges of the Church and was assassinated by followers of the king in the Cathedral.
From there we ventured into the crypt, which made me think of that tv show the crypt keeper/storyteller, something like that haha! They were kind of creepy. Saw the place where St. Thomas Becket’s tomb used to lie before it was moved upstairs to the exact same spot, and then later the tomb & Sir Thomas was completely destroyed by King Henry VIII. There was a room where all of the plates, cups, rings, swords, and other memorabilia is kept to view and is sometimes used in certain ceremonies. We were not allowed to take any pictures in there. Then back upstairs to the Choir, where ironically the organ music started to play for the first time while we were there :D It was so cool to look out from the choir and see the HUGE congregation area and the back wall stain glass windows! Imagine singing from those steps, it would have been wonderful! Then we headed into what looked like a type of office area that is behind the choir. Which I guess is where the many choir members sit. It is joined further down to the Lady’s Chapel in the 13th century. Next came the tomb of the Black Prince. No one knows why he was called the Black Prince really lol, it makes me think of the Black Knight in Monty Python. The Black Knight always triumphs! Don’t exactly remember what the Black Knight was all about, sorry. Then we saw another little chapel called the Chapel of Remembrance that had a lot of old flags hung around the walls. A memorial bust of Edward Pusey, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement and Regius Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church 1828-82.
Then we headed over to the monks quarters which was also used to give shelter to the homeless at one time. There are 2 rows of stone that 150 monks would gather in the room to discuss daily matters. This was the room we got to see 2 summers ago and we were really allowed to be in it at that time. But oh well. It had a beautiful stain glass window of a lot of kings (including King Henry VIII) and cardinals and 2 Queens (Bertha and Victoria).
That concludes the tour of the historical sites around Canterbury! Please throw all of your trash in the garbage outside the theater. Buhbye, buhbye, goodbye. Oh man my cheecks hurt! (Barbie from movie ToyStory 2) Hehe! More later! <3 Shannon