St Augustine's Cross and the Shrine of St Augustine, Ebbsfleet, Ramsgate

The Augustine Camino passes this 19th-century cross, erected to mark the arrival of the missionary bishop in 597, before reaching his shrine in Ramsgate

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Cross marking arrival of St Augustine

This is not actually St Augustine’s Cross, but a 19th-century monument set up to record his arrival in Kent in 597. St Augustine and his retinue of 40 monks are believed to have landed at or near Pegwell Bay to spread the word of God to the English people. His shrine church at nearby Ramsgate further helps cement his place in this historic landscape.

The monument is about half a mile inland from Pegwell Bay, and marks the area where the great missionary held his first meeting with King Ethelbert of Kent. The cross was set up in 1884 by the second earl of Granville.

According to Bede’s History (i.25), St Augustine’s missionaries were viewed with suspicion by the king. Worried they would overwhelm him with their magical powers he insisted on meeting in the open air, somewhere in the vicinity of this memorial. Quite why the king was so superstitious is not clear: his wife Queen Bertha was not only a Christian but employed a chaplain from Gaul, St Liudhard, to minister in Canterbury. Ethelbert must have been terrified of his foreign wife and her mysterious retinue.

Anyway, the meeting was a success and King Ethelbert became a Christian along with the Kentish people, and he and his queen are recognised as saints. The site is now in the care of English Heritage, which provides a short explanatory panel.

Historians dispute the exact location of St Augustine’s landing, so the cross is best considered a landowner’s informed guess at the correct place. But if he did land at Pegwell Bay the location must be pretty accurate. The bay is 700m away on the other side of a golf course.

The Shrine of St Augustine and the National Pugin Centre in nearby Ramsgate perfectly embody the spiritual heritage of this coast. The building alone merits a pilgrimage, a masterpiece by the famous Victorian designer Augustus Pugin. On a more traditional devotional note, the shrine is home to a relic of the great missionary himself, beautifully displayed alongside another relic of his sponsor Pope Gregory the Great.

One final curiosity in the area deserves mention, since it underscores the presence of Christianity before Augustine’s arrival. A hexagonal chamber in the ruins of the Roman fort at Richborough, 3 miles to the south, dates from the late 4th or early 5th century. Though its purpose is uncertain, it is thought by some to be a baptismal immersion font, the oldest known in Britain. The site is run by English Heritage, and much of the brick-built structure is worn away.

Cross is on: Cottington Road, Cliffs End CT12 5JNW3W: clarifies.regulate.prowl GPS: 51.3284N 1.3579EDirections: The cross is on Cottington Road, justeast of the entrance to St Augustine’s Golf Club.Use the club’s postcode for satnav: CT12 5JN.Pegwell Bay is 5 minutes’ drive away, and there is acar park at Pegwell Bay Country Park on the A256Sandwich Road. The Shrine of St Augustine is on StAugustine’s Rd, Ramsgate CT11 9NY; its informativewebsite is www.augustine-pugin.org.uk.Richborough Roman Fort is on RichboroughRoad, Richborough CT13 9JW.