Pinhole photograph on 5 x 4 in colour negative film, inkjet print on archival paper, 60.9 x 50.8 cm (24.0 x 20.0 in), edition of 3 + 1 AP.

In the early morning of “the eighteetethe day / Of Aprill” 2015, I set off from the site of the Tabard Inn in Southwark (1 Talbot Yard), retracing the steps of Chaucer’s pilgrims towards Thomas Becket’s shrine at Canterbury Cathedral. The writer Iain Sinclair once observed that “the old pilgrim routes have been realigned: nobody walks to Canterbury.” But that is what I did.

The journey took me three and a half days, following the ancient Roman road—now the congested A2—through St Thomas’ Watering-place in Burgess Park, Deptford, Greenwich, Dartford, Rochester, Sittingbourne, Ospringe, Boughton-under-Blean, Harbledown, and finally to the Church of St Dunstan’s Without the West Gate. In the early afternoon, I arrived at the inn where Chaucer’s pilgrims were said to have lodged and is now, rather conveniently for me, a Pret A Manger on Canterbury High Street.

The next morning, I took a guided tour of the cathedral and from the gift shop, bought a fridge magnet. On my way to the station, I picked up an old copy of the Tales with a striking fuchsia cover. As soon as I found a seat next to the window, I began to read from the beginning: “Whan that Aprill with his shores soote …” I was home in Shepherd’s Bush in time for dinner. Largely unread, the book found its resting place on my bookshelf and back in the studio, I took this photograph as fulfilment of my literary pilgrimage.