A Canterbury Pilgrimage

At the corner where Chaucer’s Tabard ought to stand, Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell face a pilgrim’s first difficulty: how do you begin a journey from an inn that has vanished?

In the late-summer heat of Victorian London, the Pennells set out by tricycle to follow the old road through Kent toward Canterbury. Belgian paving catches their wheel, drivers jeer, dogs give chase, and curious villagers turn out to watch. Along the way they meet the season’s hop-pickers, traveling from smoky London to the fields, and find that the road holds more than echoes of Chaucer’s pilgrims. What kind of pilgrimage can two riders make among the people who travel it for work?

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