THE answer to Chaucer’s question is yes: Canon Robin Ewbank is the Vicar of St John’s, Hartley Wintney, in Winchester diocese, and he recently walked the 110 miles from his parish church to Canterbury Cathedral in five-and-a-half days.

For someone aged 67 that was very good going — most people allow twice that length of time, even in summer — and Canon Ewbank did it in snow and mud, crippled by blisters and, in the last two days, a torn calf muscle. Even so, it was a wonderful experience, he says: climbing over the snowy Hog’s Back to Guildford on the first day, then three times up and down the North Downs on the second, finding himself hot despite the cold (above).

He went through lovely villages, and stopped at ancient pubs on the original pilgrimage route, delighted to find one called the Dirty Habit. He was accompanied by his son for one day, and after that by a couple of friends. Despite an enforced rest-day to ease his torn muscle, he still made it to Canterbury on time to have lunch with his 91-year-old aunt, and for the cathedral evensong, when he was welcomed by the Bishop of Basingstoke, the Rt Revd Trevor Willmott, who was being installed as the new Bishop of Dover and Bishop in Canterbury by the Archbishop of Canterbury that afternoon.

The aim was to raise money for Canon Ewbank’s Victorian church in Hartley Wintney, once rudely called “the ugliest church in Hampshire”. It has a thriving congregation, and needs to raise £1.7 million to replace its outdated hall and temporary facilities with new buildings for its expanding youth work, “Bumps and Babies”, and everything else that goes on in the village.

Funds are coming in, to which Canon Ewbank has now been able to contribute £7275. They are still in the early stages of planning permission and faculties, but he hopes the development will have started by the end of this year.