This was the type of small, unpretentious cottage which pilgrims must have passed many times from Winchester to Canterbury. A dingle is a small, deep wooded valley. The word is not recorded in literature until the 13th century and then only once. It doesn't appear to have been written about again until the 17th century. But although our medieval pilgrims may have been unfamiliar with the word, they would have been only too familiar with the reality as they followed the winding way, up hill and down dale, through the "mire" and "slough" which Chaucer mentions more than once in The Canterbury Tales.
    Ancient man had traversed this land long before the pilgrims began journeying to Canterbury. He would have tried to find the easiest way, keeping as far as possible above the marshy ground, but trying also to avoid scaling too many heights. But he couldn't avoid the rivers, the steep cliffs and the deep valley--and dingles that lay in his way. And so it was with the pilgrims. Many a dingle did they have to contend with before they reached journey's end and the pleasantly level ways of Canterbury.