as it was the direct route, and research by local historians has provided much by way of detail—sometimes embellished—of the pilgrims' journeys. The numbers making their way to Canterbury by this route were not recorded, but the estimate by the Kentish historian William Coles Finch that it carried more than 100,000 pilgrims a year is surely an exaggeration; a more prosaic estimate—extrapolated from the records of pilgrims' offerings at the shrine—contends an annual figure closer to 1,000. A separate (and more reliably attested) route to Canterbury from London was by way of Watling Street, as followed by the storytellers in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Conversely, the concept of a single route called the Pilgrims' Way could be no older than the Victorian Ordnance Survey map of Surrey, whose surveyor, Edward Renouard James, published a pamphlet in 1871 entitled Notes on the Pilgrims' Way in West Surrey. While acknowledging that the route was "little studied" and that "very many persons in the neighbourhood had not been aware of it", he nonetheless caused the name to be inserted on the Ordnance Survey map, giving official sanction to his conjecture. Romantic writers such as Hilaire Belloc were eager to follow this up and they succeeded in creating "a fable of...modern origin" to explain the existence of the Way. In fact, the route as shown on modern maps is not only unsuitable for the mass movement of travellers but has also left few traces of their activity. The official history of the Ordnance Survey acknowledges the "enduring archaeological blunder", blaming the enthusiasm for history of the then Director, General Sir Henry James. However, F. C. Elliston-Erwood, a Kentish historian, notes that tithe records dating from before 1815 use the well established name "Pilgrims' Way" to reference and locate pieces of land. Earlier still, surviving thirteenth century documents show a "Pilgrim Road" by the walls of Thornham Castle, Kent, on what is today considered the route. The Pilgrims' Way is at the centre of the Powell and Pressburger film A Canterbury Tale, with the camera panning along a map of the route at the start of the film. Route Anyone walking the 'Pilgrims Way' from Winchester would have started along the Roman road east following the route through New Alresford, Four Marks, Alton and Bentley to Farnham. This roughly follows the modern A31. The ancient main streets of towns along the route from