Canterbury is a city on the River Stour in Kent in south-east England. The city has a long history and in Roman times was an administrative center with the name Durovernum. During this time city walls and city gates were constructed, and a monastery was founded in 597, close to the site where Canterbury Cathedral was later built. It was established by Augustine of Canterbury, who was sent to England as a missionary.

Canterbury became a place of pilgrimage when Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the cathedral in 1170. The plague hit the city in 1348, and over the following centuries the population dropped from 10,000 to 3,000. In 1413, Henry IV was buried in the city’s cathedral, and in 1448, Canterbury was given a borough court with a mayor and a sheriff. In the 19th century, the city grew, and the railway arrived in 1830. During World War II, the city was hit by great destruction during Luftwaffe bombings.

Today, Canterbury is a pleasant city where you can take some lovely walks in the old town. You can start at the Buttermarket, which is Canterbury’s central square. In the square you can see the monument Canterbury War Memorial, which was erected as a memorial to the city’s fallen during the First World War. From the Buttermarket you can walk along Sun Street, Burgate and Mercery Lane, which lead to the main street, High Street.

Close by, you can visit the Canterbury Roman Museum, where you can see preserved floor mosaics and archaeological finds from the city’s Roman times. From the Buttermarket, you can also choose to enter through the Christchurch Gate, which is on the north-east side of the square. The gate was built around 1520 and serves as the main entrance to the ecclesiastical complex with Canterbury Cathedral as the central building.

Canterbury Cathedral is the city’s landmark and is also on the UNESCO World Heritage List, along with the Church of St Martin and the ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey. Canterbury Cathedral was founded and built in its original form in 597, while the current cathedral is the result of a rebuilding that started in 1070. The church was extended to the east after a fire in 1174 and to accommodate the many pilgrims who came here after the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170.

The cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the formal head of the Anglican Church, and therefore the cathedral also has a special status. Before the Reformation, it was Catholic and was part of a Benedictine monastery. The cathedral stands beautifully with parts in Norman-Romanesque architecture and parts in the newer Gothic style. The church was largely completed in 1411 after the rebuilding of the former Romanesque nave. The interior of the cathedral is impressive, and you can see beautiful chapels, a Romanesque crypt and fine stained-glass windows.

A little south-east of the center you can visit the Church of St Martin, which was built at the end of the 5th century. The church is thereby the oldest church still in use in England and in the English-speaking world. It was the Christian princess Bertha from the Kingdom of France who had the church built when she married King Æthelbert of Kent. Close by is St Augustine’s Abbey, founded in 598, which was a monastery until the English Reformation in 1538. The abbey is now a ruin, but it was originally intended as a burial place for the kings of Kent and the archbishops of Canterbury.

There are several other attractions in Canterbury, and you can also see the city from the water side on a boat trip on the Canterbury River. This takes place with so-called punting, where you gentle move forward in the pleasant surroundings. Along the river you can e.g. see Westgate, the largest preserved city gate in England. The 18-meter-high gatehouse formed the fortified western entrance to Canterbury and was one of a total of seven city gates in the historic city walls.