Editing Pilgrims' Way (section)

==History==
[[File:Pilgrims Way Titsey.jpg|thumb|left|Map of Pilgrims Way near [[Titsey]], Surrey. The upper route, on the brow of the [[North Downs]], is the [[ancient trackway]] (note the archaeological finds at the top left); the lower, almost in the valley, is the route surmised by the [[Ordnance Survey]] in the 19th century]]
[[File:Pilgrims Way - geograph.org.uk - 621078.jpg|thumb|left|A section of the lower route, eroded into the slope, in Surrey]]The prehistoric trackway extended further than the present Way, providing a link from the narrowest part of the [[English Channel]] to the important religious complexes of [[Avebury]] and [[Stonehenge]], in Wiltshire, where it is known as the [[Harrow Way|Harroway]]. The way then existed as "broad and ill-defined corridors of movement up to half a mile wide" and not as a single, well-defined track.<ref>{{cite book|last=Castleden|first=Rodney|title=The Stonehenge People: An Exploration of Life in Neolithic Britain, 4700-2000 BC|publisher=Routledge|year=1987|page=[https://archive.org/details/stonehengepeople0000cast/page/114 114]|chapter=The High Roads|isbn=0-7102-0968-1|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/stonehengepeople0000cast/page/114}}</ref><ref name="Crawford">{{cite book|last=Crawford|first=Osbert|authorlink=O. G. S. Crawford|title=Archaeology in the Field|publisher=Phoenix House|location=London|year=1953|page=7|oclc=30245154}}</ref> The route was still followed as an artery for through traffic in [[Roman occupation of Britain|Roman]] times, a period of continuous use of more than 3000&nbsp;years.<ref name=Margary/>

From Thomas Becket's  [[canonization]] in 1173, until the [[dissolution of the monasteries]] in 1538, his shrine at Canterbury became the most important in the country, indeed "after Rome...the chief shrine in Christendom",<ref>Wright (1971: 16)</ref> and it drew pilgrims from far and wide. Winchester, apart from being an ecclesiastical centre in its own right (the shrine of [[Swithun|St Swithin]]), was an important regional focus and an aggregation point for travellers arriving through the seaports on the south coast.<ref name=Wright></ref>  It is "widely accepted" that this was the route taken by [[Henry II of England|Henry II]] on his pilgrimage of atonement for the death of Bishop Thomas, from France to Canterbury in July 1174, although this has been disputed and some evidence points to his having taken a route via London.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Cartwright|first1=Julia|title=The Pilgrims' Way: From Winchester to Canterbury|date=1911|publisher=John Murray|location=London|oclc=559472322|page=5|authorlink=Julia Cartwright Ady}}</ref><ref name="Hooper">{{cite journal |last=Hooper |first=Wilfrid |year=1936 |title=The Pilgrims' Way and its supposed pilgrim use |url=https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-379-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_44/surreyac044_047-083_hooper.pdf |journal=Surrey Archaeological Collections |location=Guildford |publisher=Surrey Archaeological Society |volume=44 |page=53}} A [[Pipe Roll]] record for the hire of horses for the King's escort to London is extant.{{Doi|10.5284/1068817}}</ref> Travellers from Winchester to Canterbury  naturally used the ancient way, as it was the direct route, and research by local historians has provided much by way of detail—sometimes embellished—of the pilgrims' journeys. The numbers making their way to Canterbury by this route were not recorded, but the estimate by the Kentish historian [[William Coles Finch]] that it carried more than 100,000 pilgrims a year is surely an exaggeration; a more prosaic estimate—extrapolated from the records of pilgrims' offerings at the shrine—contends an annual figure closer to 1,000.<ref>{{cite book|last=Finch|first=William Coles|authorlink=William Coles Finch|title=In Kentish pilgrim land, its ancient roads and shrines|year=1925|publisher=Charles William Daniel|location=London|page=77|oclc=6213389}}</ref><ref name=FCEE>{{cite journal|last1=Elliston-Erwood|first1=F.C.|title=The "Pilgrim's Way" its antiquity and its alleged Mediæval Use|journal=[[Kent Archaeological Society|Archaeologia Cantiana]]|date=1925|volume=37|pages=1–20|url=https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Pub/ArchCant/Vol.037%20-%201925/037-01.pdf}} {{open access}}</ref><ref>Hooper (1936) 44 "In their train have followed the host of guide-books and popular writers who have expanded and embellished ''ad libitum'' as fancy prompted".</ref>  A separate (and more reliably attested) route  to Canterbury from London was by way of [[Watling Street]], as followed by the storytellers in ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'' by [[Geoffrey Chaucer]].<ref name=FCEE/>

Conversely, the concept of a single route called the Pilgrims' Way could be no older than the Victorian [[Ordnance Survey]] map of Surrey, whose surveyor, Edward Renouard James, published a pamphlet in 1871 entitled ''Notes on the Pilgrims' Way in West Surrey''. While acknowledging that the route was "little studied" and that "very many persons in the neighbourhood had not been aware of it", he nonetheless caused the name to be inserted on the Ordnance Survey map, giving official sanction to his conjecture.<ref>{{cite book|last=James|first=Edward Renouard|title=Notes on the Pilgrims Way in West Surrey|year=1871|publisher=Edward Stanford|location=London|page=6|oclc=560914994}}</ref> Romantic writers such as [[Hilaire Belloc]] were eager to follow this up and they succeeded in creating "a fable of...modern origin" to explain the existence of the Way.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Belloc |first1=Hilaire |authorlink1=Hilaire Belloc |title=The Old Road |date=1904 |publisher=John Constable |location=London |oclc=70731922}}</ref><ref name=Margary/>  In fact, the route as shown on modern maps is not only unsuitable for the mass movement of travellers but has also left few traces of their activity.<ref name=FCEE/><ref>{{cite book|last=Parker|first=Eric|title=Surrey|publisher=Hale|location=London|year=1947|chapter=The Pilgrims Way|oclc=4320463}}</ref> The official history of the Ordnance Survey acknowledges the "enduring archaeological blunder", blaming the enthusiasm for history of the then Director, General Sir [[Henry James (Ordnance Survey)|Henry James]].<ref>{{cite book
  | last =Owen
  | first =Tim
  | authorlink =
  |author2=Pilbeam, Elaine
   | title =Ordnance Survey
  | publisher =Ordnance Survey
  | year =1992
  | location =Southampton, England
  | url =
  | doi =
  | id =  
  | isbn =0-319-00498-8
  | page = 64 }}</ref> However, F. C. Elliston-Erwood, a Kentish historian, notes that [[Tithe#Church collection of religious offerings and taxes|tithe]] records dating from before 1815 use the well established name "Pilgrims' Way" to reference and locate pieces of land.<ref name=FCEE/> Earlier still, surviving thirteenth century documents show a "Pilgrim Road" by the walls of [[Thurnham Castle|Thornham Castle]], Kent, on what is today considered the route.<ref name=Hooper/><ref>{{cite map
 | author =Ordnance Survey
 | year =1957
 | title =172 Chatham & Maidstone
 | scale =1:63360
 | location = Chessington, England
 | section =
 | access-date = }}</ref>

The Pilgrims' Way is at the centre of the [[Powell and Pressburger]] film ''[[A Canterbury Tale]]'', with the camera panning along a map of the route at the start of the film.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hauser|first=Kitty|title=Shadow Sites: Photography, Archaeology, and the British Landscape, 1927-1955|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford, England|year=2007|pages=256–261|chapter=From Pilgrims' Way to the railway|isbn=978-0-19-920632-2}}</ref>