Image of Canterbury Cathedral

-- Canterbury Cathedral, in England, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Canterbury has been the seat of the spiritual head of the Church of England for nearly five centuries. The cathedral was founded in the 6th century by St. Augustine. The original Saxon church was destroyed by fire in 1067 and rebuilt again by the Normans in 1070. Later many additions created the current romanesque and gothic church, though some of its ancient stained glass windows date back to the 12th century they were removed as a precaution at the beginning of WW II . The Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the cathedral in 1170, under the orders of King Henry II. Soon his tomb became a place of pilgrimage and he was canonized a few years later. Geoffrey Chaucer set his famous Canterbury Tales about pilgrims on their way to Beckets shrine. King Henry IV and Edward the Black Prince, as well as numerous archbishops, are buried in the Cathedral.