Malling Abbey 2019

My previous stays at Malling Abbey have always been in the old guesthouse, or in recent years, the new Abbey Garth rooms. This is the first year I have stayed in the Tudor room over the Pilgrim's Chapel named S. Thomas Becket. It's more spacious than any of the others and has a little hatch that looks into the Chapel itself, its drawbacks being the remoteness from the kitchen, the fact that the toilet is down a precipitous staircase, and the bathroom, if such you can call it, is wedged into what is effectively a cupboard.

Before Malling Abbey cut its labyrinth into the turf a few years ago, I was sceptical about labyrinths: now I always walk it when I visit. The motif of the labyrinth is about the spiritual journey to some still point at the centre, a place of belonging and truth, and the outward journey has often felt a little awkward. You can cheat and just walk across the labyrinth, but if you don't do that, what is it you're doing by retracing your steps along its winding paths, now approaching, now distancing from the centre point, until eventually you leave? I only felt for the first time this year that it must be about taking what you have learned out again: you walk past quirks and obstacles you've passed before, and this time recognise them. It's as much a journey of growth as going inward is.