The Canterbury Cathedral Chess Pieces - SAC Hand DecoratedThe city of Canterbury has been a place of Christian worship for nearly two thousand years. Following a major fire at the original cathedral in 1174, the monks at Canterbury used the revenue from the many pilgrims visiting the shrine and relics of St Thomas to create the first Gothic cathedral in England . The rebuilding and reconstruction continued during the following century and ensured that at the end of the Middle Ages, Canterbury Cathedral was