Canterbury in 2 days, on foot

This 2-day self-guided walking plan for Canterbury covers 13 narrated sights in an easy day-by-day order. Each day is split into a morning and an afternoon loop, and every stop has a two to three minute audio story in the Gingerguide app.

You set the pace: this is a suggested order, not a schedule. Walk it in 2 days, or stretch it out. Reorder freely; Canterbury rewards a detour.

The Canterbury route at a glance

Day 1

Day 1 covers 7 stops over about 1.5 km as the crow flies, from Canterbury Roman Museum to Eastbridge Hospital. ≈ 1.5 km between stops, straight line

Morning

1. Canterbury Roman Museum: An underground museum built around an in-situ Roman mosaic of about 300 AD, uncovered by wartime bombing, with a hypocaust and the late-Roman silver Canterbury Treasure. 0.1 km to the next stop
2. The Canterbury Tales: A walk-through attraction in a medieval church bringing Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to life, following his company of pilgrims on their storytelling journey from London to Becket's shrine. 0.3 km to the next stop
3. Dane John Gardens: Canterbury's elegant Georgian park along the medieval walls, laid out from 1790, with a bandstand, a fountain and an ancient mound that was a Roman burial place and later a Norman castle. 0.4 km to the next stop
4. Greyfriars Chapel: A small 13th-century friary building spanning an arm of the Stour, part of the first Franciscan house in England, set in quiet riverside gardens behind the High Street. 0.3 km to the next stop

Afternoon

1. The Westgate: England's largest surviving medieval city gate, twin ragstone towers of about 1380 over the main street, later the city gaol, with a rooftop view straight to the cathedral. 0.2 km to the next stop
2. The Old Weavers' House: A much-photographed Tudor timber-framed house leaning over the River Stour, named for the Huguenot and Walloon 'Strangers' who brought cloth-weaving to Canterbury in the 1500s. 0 km to the next stop
3. Eastbridge Hospital: A medieval pilgrims' hospital on the High Street over the Stour, where travellers to Becket's shrine slept for fourpence a night; still an almshouse after eight centuries.

Day 2

Day 2 covers 6 stops over about 1.1 km as the crow flies, from The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge to St Martin's Church. ≈ 1.1 km between stops, straight line

Morning

1. The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge: Canterbury's free museum, gallery and library in a flamboyant Tudor-revival building of 1899, holding a Chaucer portrait, a Van Dyck, and the works of painter Thomas Sidney Cooper. 0.1 km to the next stop
2. Mercery Lane: A tiny, timber-framed medieval street, the pilgrims' old approach to Becket's shrine, its overhanging houses almost meeting overhead and framing the classic view of the cathedral. 0.1 km to the next stop
3. Christ Church Gate: The dazzling Tudor gateway from the Buttermarket into the cathedral precincts, its front crowded with carved heraldry and crowned by a gilded figure of Christ. 0.1 km to the next stop

Afternoon

1. Canterbury Cathedral: The mother church of the Anglican world, where Thomas Becket was murdered in 1170; a vast Gothic cathedral of soaring nave, ancient glass and the great Bell Harry tower. 0.3 km to the next stop
2. St Augustine's Abbey: The ruined Benedictine abbey founded by St Augustine around 597, burial place of the Kentish kings and first archbishops, dissolved by Henry VIII in 1538 and now a quiet World Heritage field. 0.5 km to the next stop
3. St Martin's Church: The oldest parish church still in use in the English-speaking world, Queen Bertha's chapel and St Augustine's mission base, its flint walls studded with reused Roman brick.

Distances are straight-line between stops; streets add a little.

Updated: October 8, 2026

Full Canterbury guide and all stops →