Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The level of the east end of the church was changed after the great fire of 1174 which destroyed the early choir. This required the east end of the great church to be largely rebuilt and saw a new Choir, Sanctuary, Trinity Chapel and Corona built above a new crypt which necessitated raising the whole new east end.

Monument Types

• STEPS (Now, Medieval to Unknown - 1175 AD)

Full description

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The level of the east end of the church was changed after the great fire of 1174 which destroyed the early choir. This required the east end of the great church to be largely rebuilt and saw a new Choir, Sanctuary, Trinity Chapel and Corona built above a new crypt which necessitated raising the whole new east end. Thus the steps formed part the new east end, built between 1175 and 1184, to provide access to the higher level at the east end, either side of the choir and up to the choir. Those to the sides became known as the Pilgrim Steps and have been worn into hollows by thousands of pilgrim's visiting the shrine of St. Thomas Becket over a three hundred year period up to the time of Henry VIII.

Unknown, 1945, The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Christ, Canterbury, A Handbook for Pilgrims (Monograph). SKE30198.

Willett, C., 1960, Canterbury Cathedral A Pictorial Guide (Monograph). SKE29722.

Sources and further reading