ALONG THE PILGRIMS’ WAY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6849, 2 March 1929, Page 15

ALONG THE PILGRIMS’ WAY

Once on a summer diay I tramped the white Roman road that turns from the Straits. of Dover through 4he heart of . GaniterbnTy ore it swings away for London.

As I strode southward, tko trees fell back from the roadside, and with the sun in my face, a constant stream of traffic wearied me of Watling Street and dust. It turned at random down a sloping lane and came suddenly into a region remote from the scorched and roaring highway above. A graas-grown bridle track lay between nigh banks dad with fern and ragged robin and topped with a grove of beech and yew, while over all, save for a thrush’s notes there hung a complete brooding silence. Stretched at ease among saplings, I lay entranced under a spell as oi bygone and unhurried ages. This was in part explained when, on opening a map, I read the namo of the. Pilgrims ’ Way. Though then the name had small meaning, I there some future season, lead where it might I would follow that path on foot, sleeping under the stars and carrying in pilgrim fashion staff in hand and load on back. Thereat the leaves turned greener, the sky bluer, and I fell asleep. ... The Pilgrims’ Way obtains its name from the pious folk who swarmed from (t every shire’s ende’’ to the shrine of Thomas 'a Bocket at Canterbury, but if is far older than they older than any Roman road, almost as old as the hills it follows. When the valleys wore choked with swamp and forest, the safest paths for primitive men lay along hillsides, and, except for trifling gaps, the range of the North I>owns runs continuously for a hundred miles across southern England. Along this chain lies the old road, ever on the southward slope, for the most part between the edge of cultivation and the crest, and, while maintaining its height above tho valley floor, choosing always the easiest gradients. ... It is difficult to describe the wonderful variety of tho Way.; In itself unchanged, it may be a Bandy track amid pines and heather, a faint chalkline on the down side, a flowery Inno through, a winding copice or a twisted path beneath venerable yews. Other roads quarries or the plough have cut or destroyed it in places, but the groat-, ,er part may still be- found- ' The motorist' is casting covetous eyes, the hand oi the builder is falling upon it, but for many , a jniile one still may. wander through an atmosphere .truly English;, charged with history and tradition, yet coloured with living tints and hues—the atmosphere of the Pilgrims ’ Way. *

We have, come from Winchester along the Pilgrims’ Way, We carry the scent of herbage we gathered on down and moor, The powdered chalk of tho uplands and loam of the valley floor, Mould from tho meadows of Hampshire, with sand of a Surrey lame The mark of tho thorn and sunlight and husks of the Kentish grain, But the&f and a sprig of heather are all that we can display, For they bear no visible guerdon who travel a pilgrim’s way.