“Lo, Depeford, and it is half wey pryme. Lo, Grenewych, ther many a shrewe is inne”; then-- “Lo, Rouchestre stant heer faste by!” and so along our pilgrims’ way through the pleasant country of Kent until we reach “A litel toun, Which that y-cleped is Bobbe-up-and-doun, Under the Blee in Caunterbury weye”; maybe Harbledown, where we will loiter anon. And so to close sight of the Angel Steeple and of the hospitable red roofs nestling round the church, wherein stands the shrine we have set forth to see. Then down the steep way into the city, perchance to the music of Canterbury bells. We have arrived toward dusk, and naturally we shall at once seek out our lodging for the night, as did Chaucer’s company-- “When all this fresh feleship were com to Cantirbury.”[5] Alack, we cannot lay our heads under the same roof as did they-- “They took their in and loggit them at mydmorowe, I trowe, Atte Cheker of the Hope that many a man doth knowe.” There is little room for doubt but that this inn, the “Chequers of the Hope,” occupied the west corner of the angle formed by the High Street and Mercery Lane, hard by the old Butter Market and Christchurch Gate. Of the original building only fragments remain, for fire was only too busy here in the year 1865. Here was the dormitory of the Hundred Beds, the Pantry, the Buttery, the Dining Room, and the beautiful garden with its herbs and flowers, to all of which the writer of the “Supplementary Tale” makes reference. In olden days Canterbury might almost have been described [Illustration: SOUTH-WEST TRANSEPT AND ST GEORGE’S TOWER, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL] as a city of churches, religious houses, and hostelries and other accommodations for pilgrims--that was the atmosphere of mediæval Canterbury. On the opposite side of High Street to the “Chequers” was a lodging for pilgrims erected by Prior Chillenden in the fifteenth century, which was for long years after the Reformation an ordinary inn for travellers. Pilgrims came throughout the year in companies large and small, but the throng and press was tremendous at the festival of the Martyrdom on December 29, and in summer for the festival of the Translation on July 7, which also was the first day of Canterbury Fair. Larger still the crowds in the years of jubilee, 1270, 1320, 1370, 1420, 1470, and 1520, when on each fiftieth anniversary of the Translation the feast lasted for two weeks and indulgences were granted to all pilgrims. Beside the inns, there was plenty other accommodation for pilgrims of all degrees, in the hospitals and convents, and, above all, in the Priory of Christ Church.