to share a pint of beer and a story or two...

But for one group of people - The George Coaching Inn has special significance...because it's

right next door to the pub where Chaucer's Pilgrims met in 1392 before setting off for

Canterbury.

"Now the Tabard was a real pub, unfortunately it burnt down, was re-built, and then burnt

down again and wasn't rebuilt. By chance, right next door is the stunning George pub,

which is London's last galleried coaching inn and it looks exactly the same as coaching

inns would have looked like when Dickins was here. It's just great chance it's next to

the Tabard, and we're going to be meeting like the pilgrims do in the poem for a dinner,

the night before they set off..."

"I'm hoping the pilgrims on this pilgrimage will first of all get an increased appreciation

of Chaucer out of coming on it. It's quite rare for anyone to have read all of the Canterbury

Tales and so in some ways, this is a great way of getting your head around that massive

epic work of literature."

The pilgrims have come from far and wide to take part in this journey - a four day walk

tracing the steps of Chaucer's pilgrims, ending up at Canterbury Cathedral, and reciting Chaucer's

tales along the way.

"I'm hoping that I'll meet a lot of interesting people who are sort of fascinated with the

same sort of things that I am and I'll have actually hopefully understood the tale a little

bit more as well because the very act of performing it and adapting it will have allowed me to

see sort of deeper things that I might not have noticed."

"Well first of all I think it will be a very nice trip, especially for the relationships

that the pilgrims will probably create among each other, and I also want to see the places

that the pilgrims have visited, well the fictional characters have visited in the stories told

in the Canterbury Tales."

And so after a meal to get to know each other the the pilgrims gather the next morning at

the site of the Tabard, now just a bustling alleyway in the shadow of one of London's

newest buildings.

"I'm extremely excited, I've been really excited all week. I want to hear all the stories,

I want to hear people's interpretations of the stories, making them relevant for us and

I want to have some fun."

And after a moment to honour Chaucer himself, our Pilgrims are on their way...

"Centuries old words still carry so much humour, so much life, so much recognisable truth about

the human condition. It's a real pleasure just to access those words and embody them

through this pilgrimage."

After four days and some less than perfect weather, the pilgrims take part in an important

ritual just before they arrive at their destination...

"When Henry II came on pilgrimage to Canterbury to atone for the death for Thomas A Becket

who he had directly had killed, he got of his horse at this church, St Dunstan's, and

removed his shoes and walked the rest of the way barefoot, so in memory of Henry II we're

doing the same thing."

"I'm hoping that the pilgrims will feel a kind of real sense of achievement which borders

on a real spiritual emotional feeling at the end. This is definitely a literary pilgrimage

but I don't think you can escape that close-knit group travelling together over a number of

days, that feeling at the end of momentous spiritual feeling and I'm hoping people will

feel that as we arrive in Canterbury."