Today Tuesday 29 December is the 850th anniversary of St Thomas Becket being murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.

This December was to have been the culmination of the Becket 2020 year in which the 800th anniversary of his Translation would have been marked as well as the 850th of his death.

This afternoon all who had intended to be at Canterbury, indeed to have walked there during Christmas week like Hilaire Belloc in 1899, can watch Evensong online from Canterbury Cathedral.

St Thomas died during Vespers. Tonight Evensong will include passages from TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral premiered at Canterbury in 1935.

February 2023 will be the 850th anniversary of the canonisation of Thomas Becket. Get ready for a chilly walk along the PW that year.