Ten Important Firsts Along the Augustine Camino

  1. Shrine of St Augustine – First Archbishop of Canterbury, Apostle to the English
Shrine of St Augustine – Ramsgate

2. Gregorian Mission – The first mission from Rome to convert a pagan people

Pope Gregory the Great meets the English slave boy – St Thomas’s Canterbury

3. Kent – The first English Kingdom – founded by Hengist and Horsa who landed in Thanet 449 AD

The Hugin “Viking Ship” at Pegwell Bay

4. King Ethelbert of Kent – First Christian English King – baptised by St Augustine

Baptism of Ethelbert by Augustine – Fresco at Rochester Cathedral

5. Textus Roffensis – The First English written law produced for Ethelbert. Possibly first use of our Roman alphabet to write English

Textus Roffensis, Rochester Cathedral

6. Canterbury Cathedral – The first English Cathedral and Mother Church of the Anglican Communion

First glimpse of the Cathedral

7. St Augustine’s Abbey – The first English monastery and the burial place of King Ethelbert and St Augustine

Remains of the Abbey with the Cathedral in the background

8. Aylesford Priory – First Carmelite Priory founded outside the Holy Land, 1242

Aylesford Priory

9. Greyfriars Chapel – Remains of the first Franciscan Friary in England

10. Julius Caesar – Thought to have attacked Bigbury Iron Age Fort (54 BC) during first Roman invasions of Britain

The interpretation board at Bigbury Iron Age fort just before Canterbury