Augustine Camino

At a glance

• Start / finish: Rochester, Cathedral (Medway) / Ramsgate, St Augustine's Church & Shrine (Isle of Thanet, Kent)
• Length: 104.7 km (route operators: „just over 65 miles (105 km)")
• Duration: 7 stages between 11.5 and 18.5 km; rest day in Canterbury recommended
• Elevation: ↗ 864 m / ↘ 858 m
• Highest point: 192 m in the North Downs near Detling; lowest point 0 m at Pegwell Bay
• Stages: 7 — the operators' stage division, kilometres calibrated to our route data
• Landscape: Medway valley, chalk slopes of the North Downs, orchards and hops around Faversham, Stour marshes, the former Wantsum Channel, coast at Ramsgate
• Operators: Paula and Andrew Kelly, Ramsgate — a private initiative, „generously supported by the Sisters of the Holy Cross"; designed 2015, opened 2017
• Waymarking: „discrete stickers" — small, not intended as the sole means of navigation; guidebook and GPX file recommended
• Traces of St James: none — no St James dedication, no scallop finds on the route; the Santiago connection comes via the CSJ rule of 2016
• Accommodation: no hostel network; monasteries (Aylesford, Minster), hostels (Doddington, Canterbury), sanctuary in churches, pubs and B&Bs
• Sister routes in England: St James' Way (Reading–Southampton), St Frideswide's Way (Oxford–Reading), Finchale Camino Inglés (Durham)
• Onwards in Spain: Camino Inglés from A Coruña — 73.7 km, with the British 26.3 km the Compostela
• Best time: April to October; overgrown in places in high summer, long trousers and insect repellent

Overview

This route walks the Christianisation of England backwards. It begins in Rochester, where Augustine made his companion Justus a bishop in 604 — „the second cathedral built in England, a few years after Canterbury" — and ends at Pegwell Bay, where Augustine had come ashore with around forty men seven years earlier. Bede wrote down how King Æthelberht received him: „residens sub divo" — sitting in the open air, because he was wary of letting the strangers into a house, „siquid maleficae artis habuissent", in case they possessed magic arts. England became Christian because a king was so suspicious that he moved the negotiation outdoors. In between lie 104.7 kilometres: the Carmelite priory at Aylesford from 1242, the abbey wall at Boxley, the chalk slopes of the North Downs, the empty royal grave at Faversham, the cathedral at Canterbury, the 372-inhabitant town of Fordwich, where the stone for that cathedral once came ashore, and Minster Abbey, founded in 670 by a great-granddaughter of the suspicious king.

To be honest, this is not a medieval Way of St James. Paula and Andrew Kelly of Ramsgate designed it in 2015 and opened it in 2017, after Andrew had lost his job in marketing; there is no St James dedication anywhere on the route, and no scallop shell either. It is a Camino by virtue of a rule: the Confraternity of Saint James lists it as a British section that counts — 26.3 kilometres here, 73.7 from A Coruña, and the cathedral in Santiago issues the Compostela. You walk four times the required distance, through orchards and hops „literally overhanging the path", past three monasteries that fell in 1538 and returned in the 20th century, and finish in the only church Augustus Pugin paid for out of his own pocket. Its tower still has no spire. You get your Compostela all the same — for a donation.

Other names

The operators call the route the Augustine Camino — that is how it appears on augustinecamino.co.uk, in the Kellys' guidebook of 2018 and in the database of the Long Distance Walkers Association (105 km, opened 2017). The Archdiocese of Southwark lists it as the third section of its Southwark Pilgrim Way — after the Romero Way and the Becket Way — but counts it only from Aylesford, whereas the operators begin in Rochester; both counts exist side by side, we follow the operators. The British Pilgrimage Trust lists it as „70 miles, 7 days". Our route data give 104.7 kilometres, the operators say „just over 65 miles (105 km)" — though their seven stage figures add up to 68 miles, which is why we have calibrated the kilometres.

Two names you will read along the way do not belong to it: the Pilgrims' Way and the North Downs Way are shared in sections between Aylesford and Detling; the first is the traditional Becket route from Winchester to Canterbury, whose medieval pilgrim traffic is disputed among historians, the second a National Trail of 246 kilometres opened by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Wye Crown on 30 September 1978. And the Kellys themselves stress that they specifically did not want to reconstruct a Pilgrims' Way: „a new route was born, taking its cue from the Mission of St Augustine to convert the English to Christianity in 597".

Who it is ideal for – and who it is not

Ideal if you want a Camino dense with cathedrals: two cathedrals, three living monastic communities, three national shrines and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 104.7 kilometres — and with the Pilgrim Passport you get into Canterbury Cathedral for free, where £18.00–21.00 (approx. €20.70–24.00) is otherwise due (as of September 2026). Ideal if you have a week and want to see England without a car: Rochester, Faversham, Canterbury and Ramsgate have direct trains to London, and you can join or leave at five of the seven stage ends. Ideal for newcomers to long-distance walking: the longest stage is 18.5 kilometres, the highest point 192 metres, and the Kellys give free advice by email and organise luggage transfer and accommodation. And ideal if the Compostela tempts you but you do not want to walk 800 kilometres: Kent counts in Santiago — with the Camino Inglés from A Coruña on top.

To be honest, though, it is not for you if you are looking for scallop shells on church doors: this route has none, its saints are Augustine, Becket, Mildred, Jude and William of Perth. Not for you if you want to rely on waymarks — the route is marked with „discrete stickers", which an observer from Faversham describes as a „minuscule sticker"; without the guidebook or GPX file you will get lost. Not for you if you expect cheap hostels: there are none, a bed costs English prices, and the cheapest option — „sanctuary", sleeping in a village church — has to be arranged in advance. And not for you if you walk in shorts in July: the operators explicitly recommend long trousers and insect repellent, because sections become overgrown in high summer. Gaps like these are planned away beforehand, not on the trail.

Route and landscape

You start in Rochester beneath the Norman cathedral of 1080, in whose crypt the Textus Roffensis lies, and follow the Medway upstream via Burham and Eccles to Aylesford, where the Carmelites have been since 1242 — with a four-hundred-year gap. From there the route climbs past Boxley and its medieval abbey wall onto the North Downs: chalk slopes, Pilgrims' Way, North Downs Way, at Detling the ruins of Thurnham Castle and the route's highest point at 192 metres. Via Hucking, Bredgar with its church by E. W. Pugin — son of the man whose church is your destination — Milstead and Doddington with a 13th-century wall painting of St Francis, the land falls into the Syndale Valley: orchards, vineyards, hops. In Ospringe stands the Maison Dieu, a pilgrim hospice with a royal charter of 1234, and beyond it Faversham, home of Britain's oldest brewery, with the Shrine of St Jude and the outline of an abbey where a king lay.

The second half runs through the old pilgrim landscape: via Boughton under Blean, which Chaucer names, and Harbledown, where Archbishop Lanfranc founded a leper hospital, into the Mercery Lane of Canterbury — cathedral, St Augustine's Abbey, St Martin's Church, World Heritage since 1989. Then it turns flat and wet: the route follows the Great Stour through Fordwich, Canterbury's medieval port, via Littlebourne and Wickhambreaux into the Stodmarsh nature reserve and on along the silted-up Wantsum Channel, which once separated the Isle of Thanet from the mainland — Plucks Gutter lies on that old waterline. Via Minster with its abbey of 670 you reach St Augustine's Cross at Pegwell Bay near Cliffsend and finally Ramsgate. Surface: field paths, chalk tracks, riverside paths, village roads; muddy in winter, overgrown in high summer, never technically difficult.

Stages, terrain and difficulty

We adopt the operators' seven stages, each of which has its own page with a mileage figure. We have calibrated the kilometres to the 104.7 kilometres of our route data — the Kellys' mileages add up to 68 miles (109.4 km), their overall figure is „just over 65 miles (105 km)". Two of the operators' stage ends, Cold Blow and Doddington, are stage markers between our waypoints Thurnham/Hucking and Milstead/Newnham; the course is the same. Difficulty: low — 864 metres of ascent over 104.7 kilometres, most of it on the North Downs between Aylesford and Detling.

1. Rochester – Burham – Eccles – Aylesford (13.1 km) — cathedral, Textus Roffensis, Chapel of William of Perth; along the Medway to the Carmelite priory The Friars. Aylesford station.
2. Aylesford – Boxley – Detling – Thurnham (Cold Blow) (12.3 km) — Boxley abbey wall, climb onto the North Downs, Thurnham Castle, highest point 192 m. Bearsted station 2.4 km away.
3. Thurnham – Hucking – Bredgar – Milstead – Doddington (15.4 km) — Downs ridge, St Catherine's Bredgar by E. W. Pugin, Torry Hill; St Francis wall painting in Doddington. The Farmyard hostel right on the route, no station.
4. Doddington – Newnham – Ospringe – Faversham (11.5 km) — Syndale Valley, Maison Dieu (1234), Shrine of St Jude, abbey outline with royal grave. Faversham station.
5. Faversham – Boughton under Blean – Harbledown – Canterbury (17.7 km) — Chaucer's village, Lanfranc's leper hospital, Eastbridge Hospital, cathedral with the Cathedra of St Augustine. Take a packed lunch, there is nothing for a long stretch. Canterbury West/East stations.
6. Canterbury – Fordwich – Littlebourne – Wickhambreaux – Stodmarsh – Grove Ferry (16.2 km) — St Martin's, St Augustine's Abbey, Britain's smallest town, Westlake windows in Littlebourne, Stour marshes. Bus 8/8A/8X from Upstreet, no station.
7. Grove Ferry – Plucks Gutter – Minster – Cliffsend – Ramsgate (18.5 km) — Wantsum Channel, Minster Abbey (670/1937), St Augustine's Cross at Pegwell Bay, Pugin's Shrine of St Augustine. Ramsgate station.

If you walk the week in one go, plan the rest day in Canterbury the operators recommend: cathedral, abbey and St Martin's are a day of their own. What is tiring is not the climbs but the summer — overgrown sections, nettles, midges — and the navigation: the stickers are small, Kent's footpaths numerous, and at stages 3 and 6 you cannot get away without a bus. Sturdy shoes, long trousers, rain jacket, power bank for the GPX file — and a packed lunch for day 5, „the operators say so explicitly".

Four monasteries fell in one year — and all of them came back

For this route, 1538 was a year of demolition, four times over. On 12 February 1538 Bishop John Hilsey of Rochester publicly declared the Rood of Grace of Boxley a fraud in Maidstone: a crucifix with „wires and rods that made the eyes move like a living thing", which could nod, weep and change its expression — he „exhibited its machinery and broke it to pieces", and the remains were burned in London. That the audience knew perfectly well it was watching a „mechanical marvel", as historians now assume, no longer mattered; the scandal was propaganda, and it worked. The same year the Carmelites of Aylesford were expelled, whose mother house had stood here since 1242 and where the order had held its first general chapter outside the Holy Land. The same year Faversham Abbey fell, founded by King Stephen in 1148, where he, his queen Matilda and their son Eustace lay — „their bones were reportedly thrown into the nearby Faversham Creek when the abbey was demolished". And on 30 July 1538 Abbot John Essex and thirty monks surrendered St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, founded by Augustine himself around 598, to Henry VIII.

What is unusual about this route is not the demolition — every English landscape has that. It is the return, each with a date. On 25 March 1937 Benedictine nuns from St Walburg in Eichstätt bought the ruin of Minster Abbey, founded in 670 by Domneva, a great-granddaughter of King Æthelberht — nine sisters came from Bavaria, and the occasion was no pious coincidence: on the day the enquiry from England arrived in Eichstätt, the SS had seized part of their monastery. The abbess read that as a sign; from 1939 to 1944 the sisters were interned in Devon as German nationals, and came back. In 1954 they had „a bank-balance of barely £30" and a leaking roof over the Saxon wing. In 1949 the estate at Aylesford came up for sale, and the Carmelites bought back their own mother house; from 1958 they rebuilt under the motto „Courage to Build Anew", and the Polish artist Adam Kossowski created around a hundred works there up to 1972. In 1955 Fr Elias Lynch consecrated the National Shrine of St Jude in Faversham — in a church converted from a cinema in 1936, „a jewel for the diocese", said the bishop. And on 1 March 2012 Pugin's church in Ramsgate was declared the Shrine of St Augustine, with relics of Augustine, Gregory the Great and Laurence.

The Kellys' route is therefore deliberately not a reconstruction of the Middle Ages. Andrew Kelly considered the old tracks destroyed and instead took in the places where pilgrimage has come back — 1937, 1949, 1955, 2012. So whoever walks the Augustine Camino sees not how England was once Catholic, but how in Kent it became so again: with sisters from Bavaria, a bought-back Carmel, a cinema and an architect who paid for his church himself. The crucifix of Boxley has not come back. The abbey wall you walk along is still standing.

Highlights along the way

• Rochester Cathedral — founded in 604 by Bishop Justus, rebuilt from 1080; in the crypt, free of charge, the Textus Roffensis (1120s), containing Æthelberht's law code of around 600, the earliest datable work in the English language, on the UNESCO Memory of the World UK Register since 2022. Fresco by Sergei Fyodorov (2004), „the first true fresco painted in an English cathedral in over 800 years". Admission free, donation requested.
• Chapel of William of Perth, Rochester — the baker from Perth who gave „every tenth loaf" to the poor set out on pilgrimage around 1201 with his adopted son and was killed by him near Rochester; canonised 1256. The steps to his chapel are worn by pilgrims' feet, „where pilgrims still light candles".
• Aylesford Priory (The Friars) — Carmelites since 1242, expelled 1538, bought back 1949; Rosary Way by Adam Kossowski, shrine of 1965. Reduced overnight rates with the Pilgrim Passport.
• Boxley Abbey — 12th-century Cistercians, home of the mechanical Rood of Grace, smashed in 1538. The route follows the medieval abbey wall.
• North Downs near Detling — Pilgrims' Way and North Downs Way (opened 30 September 1978), ruins of Thurnham Castle, highest point 192 m; in Bredgar St Catherine's by E. W. Pugin, in Doddington a 13th-century wall painting of St Francis.
• Faversham — Maison Dieu in Ospringe, pilgrim hospice with a charter of 1234; abbey outline of 1148 in the school grounds, burial place of King Stephen, uncovered by Brian Philp in 1965; National Shrine of St Jude (1955), „one of the Apostles and the Patron Saint of Lost Causes"; Shepherd Neame, Britain's oldest brewery.
• Canterbury — cathedral with the Cathedra of St Augustine, free admission with the Pilgrim Passport (otherwise £18.00–21.00, approx. €20.70–24.00, as of September 2026); St Augustine's Abbey (c. 598, surrendered 30 July 1538); St Martin's, „the oldest in continuous use in the English speaking world"; St Dunstan's with the Roper Vault, „the final resting place of Thomas More's head". World Heritage since 1989.
• Fordwich — 372 inhabitants, Britain's smallest town with a town council; Canterbury's medieval port, where the Caen stone for the cathedral was landed; Town Hall of 1544.
• Minster Abbey — founded in 670 by St Domneva, who demanded as compensation „for as much land as her pet deer could run around in a day"; her daughter Mildred is the patron saint of Thanet. Benedictine nuns from Eichstätt since 25 March 1937; guest rooms in the gatehouse.
• St Augustine's Cross, Ebbsfleet — erected in 1884 by the 2nd Earl Granville on the site of the „Augustine Oak", modelled on the Sandbach crosses; by tradition marks the meeting of 597 — whether here or at Richborough is disputed. English Heritage, free.
• St Augustine's Church & Shrine, Ramsgate — Augustus Pugin's own church, built 1844–1850 from his own pocket, consecrated 15 August 1850; Pugin has lain in his Chantry Chapel since 1852, the spire was never built. Shrine of St Augustine since 1 March 2012, with a relic („a small piece of bone from his body"); this is where you get the route's Compostela for a donation.

How pilgrims reach this route

The Augustine Camino is the best-connected Camino in England: Rochester lies on the Southeastern lines from London — Victoria, Charing Cross, St Pancras High Speed — the station is five minutes from the cathedral, and with the Eurostar from Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam you change directly at St Pancras. Faversham, Canterbury and Ramsgate also have direct trains to London, „direct, fast and frequent rail services to London", as the operators write; Aylesford and Bearsted are on regional lines. You can join or leave the route at five of the seven stage ends.

On foot, a chain leads here: the Archdiocese of Southwark counts the Augustine Camino as the third section of its Southwark Pilgrim Way, after the Romero Way and the Becket Way, which runs from the cathedral in Southwark via Lesnes Abbey, Dartford, Otford and the Medway crossing at Halling to Aylesford — walk it and you meet the Augustine Camino at the end of our stage 1 and simply carry on. From the west the Via Francigena arrives in Canterbury; and if you are building up the English collection of Caminos, you link Kent with the St James' Way from Reading to Southampton and the St Frideswide's Way from Oxford to Reading — both also listed by the Confraternity of Saint James, both with rail connections.

Continuing the pilgrimage?

Yes — and the connection is the reason this route is called a Camino. The Confraternity of Saint James includes it in its list of British routes whose kilometres count in Santiago: anyone who walks at least 26.3 kilometres on an accredited route in the United Kingdom and collects stamps may add them to the 73.7 kilometres of the Camino Inglés from A Coruña to make up the 100 kilometres for the Compostela — the cathedral in Santiago granted A Coruña this privilege in December 2016, „accepting distances walked by Santiago-bound pilgrims travelling from overseas". It is the same mechanism as the Irish Celtic Camino, only without the brand name. With 104.7 kilometres you exceed the requirement almost fourfold; the operators confirm: „stamps are recognised in Santiago". If you want the full English route, start in Ferrol instead on the Camino Inglés, around 115 kilometres — then you do not need Kent for the Compostela.

The second continuation lies right on the route: in Canterbury, on stage 6, you cross the Via Francigena, which runs from the cathedral to Dover and across the Channel to Rome — 2,000 kilometres in the other direction, for anyone who has not had enough after Kent. And in England itself the siblings are waiting: the St James' Way (109 km), the St Frideswide's Way (64.6 km) and in the north the Finchale Camino Inglés near Durham. For the Compostela one is enough — for the collection you take them all.

Preparation and practicalities

Guidebook and navigation: this is no side issue here. The route lives on the Kellys' guidebook — 48 pages of maps, route description, stories, photos and the Pilgrim Passport included, £10 (approx. €11.50) plus postage (UK £3, Europe £12; as of September 2026), on sale in the Canterbury Cathedral Shop, at Rochester Cathedral, at Aylesford Priory and in shops along the route, by email from abroad. Plus the GPX file on your phone: waymarking is by „discrete stickers", and they are small. Stamps are available at least twice per stage, „at least three per day", in churches, monasteries and shrines; you receive the route's Compostela at the finish in Ramsgate for a donation. If you continue in Galicia, you also need the Spanish credencial. Best time: April to October; long trousers and insect repellent in high summer, muddy in winter. Language: English.

Accommodation: there is no hostel network, but four ways to a bed. Monasteries: Aylesford Priory takes pilgrims by prior arrangement — single room £65.00 (approx. €75) with shared bathroom, £81.50 (approx. €94) en suite, double/twin £110.00–126.50 (approx. €126–145), each with breakfast, as of September 2026; reduced with the Pilgrim Passport — and Minster Abbey has guest rooms in the gatehouse. Hostels: The Farmyard at Doddington right on the route (£18–40 per person, approx. €21–46, breakfast included), YHA Canterbury ten minutes off the route, Medway Youth Hostel in Rochester, Brenley Farm near Faversham for groups only. Sanctuary: sleeping in churches along the route, such as St Mary's in Thurnham or Doddington, for a donation and by prior arrangement. Pubs, B&Bs, hotels, camping in Faversham, Canterbury, Ramsgate and the villages — easiest planned directly in the Camino Ninja app together with your stages. The Kellys give free advice by email and offer luggage transfer and booking as a paid service.

What the route costs you

To be honest, Kent is no budget destination, but the pilgrim passport pays for itself on the first cathedral day. All amounts as of September 2026, exchange rate £1 ≈ €1.15. Documented: guidebook with Pilgrim Passport £10 (approx. €11.50) plus postage; Canterbury Cathedral £18.00–21.00 (approx. €20.70–24.00), free with the passport; Rochester Cathedral, Textus Roffensis, St Augustine's Cross free, donation requested; Compostela in Ramsgate for a donation. Accommodation: Doddington hostel £18–40 (approx. €21–46), Aylesford Priory single room £65.00–81.50 (approx. €75–94) with breakfast, double £110.00–126.50 (approx. €126–145); sanctuary in churches for a donation. Guide values: pub room or B&B £70–110 (approx. €80–127), city hotel in Canterbury £110–170 (approx. €127–196), pub dinner £15–25 (approx. €17–29), packed lunch £6–9 (approx. €7–10).

Realistic daily budget: frugal with sanctuary, hostel or camping and self-catering £35–55 (approx. €40–63), mid-range with a monastery or pub room and one hot meal £75–110 (approx. €86–127), comfortable with city hotel and restaurant £130–190 (approx. €150–219). If you want to hand everything over: the operators' self-guided package costs from £799 (approx. €919) per person in a double room for 7 days, 8 days from £899 (approx. €1,034), single occupancy £950/1,050 (approx. €1,093/1,208), short versions from £250 (approx. €288) for two days — including accommodation, mostly breakfast, guidebook, passport, GPX, luggage transfer and a 24-hour WhatsApp group; deposit £240 (approx. €276), non-refundable. Train Ramsgate–London from £48.60 (approx. €56) Anytime, off-peak considerably cheaper.

Getting there

To the start (Rochester): from London with Southeastern from St Pancras (High Speed, around 35 minutes), Victoria or Charing Cross; Rochester station is five minutes from the cathedral. From continental Europe by Eurostar to London St Pancras and straight onto the High Speed train to Medway — Paris to Rochester can be done in a morning. Airports: London Gatwick and Heathrow, both with rail or coach links to St Pancras or Victoria.

Along the route and from the finish (Ramsgate): stations on the route are Aylesford (Medway Valley Line Strood–Maidstone), Bearsted (2.4 km from Thurnham, hourly to Maidstone), Faversham, Canterbury West and East and Ramsgate; without a station are Cold Blow/Doddington (bus 333 Sittingbourne–Maidstone, around 1.6 km) and Grove Ferry (bus 8/8A/8X Canterbury Whitefriars–Upstreet, five minutes on foot). From Ramsgate around 47 direct trains a day run to London St Pancras, fastest journey 1 hour 13 minutes, first train 04:55 (Sun 07:10), last 22:07; Anytime Day Single from £48.60 (approx. €56), as of September 2026. If you are heading on to Spain, fly from London to A Coruña or Santiago.

• Rail south-east England: southeasternrailway.co.uk — Rochester, Faversham, Canterbury, Ramsgate
• National rail, fares: nationalrail.co.uk — off-peak tickets, Aylesford, Bearsted
• Eurostar to London: eurostar.com — Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam → St Pancras
• Operators, guidebook, pilgrim passport, stage pages: augustinecamino.co.uk — Paula and Andrew Kelly
• Compostela rule for UK routes: csj.org.uk — Confraternity of Saint James, „All routes in the UK"
• Finish: augustine-pugin.org.uk — St Augustine's Church & Shrine, Ramsgate