Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Doncaster

 

Travelling south from Wakefield the Pilgrimage crosses the battlefield ( if, saving current historical debate, it really was a battle), the remains of Sandal Castle and Walton Hall, the ancestral home of Edmund Waterton, the nineteenth century scholar of medieval English Marian devotion, who like Fr Bridgett did so much to recover our awareness of these devotions. Avoiding any outlaws lurking in Barnsdale in the tradition of Robin Hood, or any stray wildcat likely to pounce on an unfortunate fifteenth century knight near Barnborough, the pilgrim reaches the town, now of course a city, of Doncaster. Here in the Carmelite friary was the shrine of Our Lady of Doncaster. Today, only a few minutes walk up the hill to the south is its modern recreation in the Catholic Church of St Peter-in-Chains.

My post from last year, together with links to longer ones from previous years, including the possible ‘King under the Post Office’, can be viewed at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Doncaster

The current Wikipedia entry about the history of the shrine and its recreation can be seen at Our_Lady_of_Doncaster

A pilgrim badge from the medieval shrine

Image: St Peter-in-Chains Doncaster

The modern statue and shrine of Our Lady of Doncaster

Image: St Peter-in-Chains Doncaster Facebook

May Our Lady of Doncaster pray for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray 

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady on Wakefield Bridge

 

The Pilgrimage now returns to Yorkshire for two stations in the West Riding. The first is the famous and beautiful chantry chapel of Our Lady on Wakefield Bridge.

My article about it from last year, together with links to those with more detail from previous years, can be found at Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady on the Bridge at Wakefield

The Wakefield chapel is more elaborate and more richly decorated than the few others which survive in England. This may be because of it being built in the 1340s when the Decorated style was still dominant whereas the others are from the fifteenth century and in the more restrained Perpendicular style. It may also reflect, as I suggested in my first post on it, the influence of the Lord of the manor, the Earl of Surrey, or of the proprietors of the rectory, the Cluniac monks of Lewis and then the canons of St Stephen’s Chapel at Westminster. It is a reminder that even small wayside chapels and shrines could be finished to a high quality. I recall a good friend from the Wakefield Historical Society making the point that even in its damaged and erodes state the sculpture from the original facade was superior to that of the 1939 replacement one sees today.

  

Wakefield Bridge and Chantry

Philip Reinagle 1793

Image: Meisterdrucke

The interior of the Chapel 

There is a replacement statue of Our Lady to the right of the altar

Image: TripAdvisor.com

May Our Lady on the Bridge at Wakefield intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Chester

The next stage on the Pilgrimage is in what was in the medieval era the Benedictine abbey of St Werbergh, and which has been since 1541 Chester Cathedral.

My post from last year, and as usual with links to previous years and other websites, about the devotional statue of Our Lady in the south choir aisle can be found at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Chester

 

Chester Cathedral from the south-east.

 The aisle which contained the statue of Our Lady is centre right. The apse at its end is a Victorian reconstruction 

Image: Cheshire Life  

The cathedral in 1865 before its drasticVictorian restoration 

Image: AbeBooks 

May Our Lady of Chester intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Fernyhalgh

Travelling south into the main part of Lancashire the next station on the Pilgrimage is at Fernyhalgh, which appears to be one that has a more or less continuous history from the medieval period. 

My post from last year, when I added it to the itinerary, has links to a number of websites which recount its history as a place of prayer in the later medieval period, through the recusant era and then since the removal of legal restrictions and the post-Emancipation flourishing of Catholicism in Lancashire. It can be accessed at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Fernyhalgh.

The Ladyewell

Image: Christian Heritage Centre

May Our Lady of Fernyhalgh intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Brougham

 

In contrast to the highly organised life of the monastic community of Furness the next shrine on the Pilgrimage, which only appears to be recorded in a line from John Leland, looks to have been a popular devotion focussed on a rural church. This was Our Lady of Brougham, near Penrith on the borders of Cumberland and Westmorland. 

My post, again with links to notes from other years, from last can be found at Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of Brougham

The church was completely rebuilt by that formidable upholder of the aristocratic traditions of her forebears Lady Anne Clifford in the 1650s, so nothing beyond the site survives of the medieval object of pilgrimage.

Wikipedia has an article about it at Ninekirks

The Churches Conservation Trust also has articles about it at St Ninian's Church, Brougham and at Brougham St Ninian

It also has one about the nearby chapel of St Wilfred at Brougham: St Wilfrid's Church - North Westmorland benefice, with more about it at St Wilfrid's Chapel - Brougham Hall

One medieval building which does survive from the time of the pilgrimage is Brougham Castle, albeit in dramatic ruins. Wikipedia has a commendably good account of the history and architecture of the building at Brougham_Castle

Brougham Castle

Image: English Heritage 

May Our Lady of Brougham intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Furness

The Pilgrimage now moves to Furness Abbey in that detached portion of Lancashire of the same name. This was a Cistercian house and therefore under the patronage of the Virgin Mary. In the traditions of that Order and to preserve claustral solitude the shrine for pilgrims was in the gatehouse chapel, the Capella ante prtam.

My post and links about the devotion at Furness to Our Lady from last year can be seen at Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of Furness

  
Furness Abbey from the south

Image:Wikipedia 

Wikipedia has a quite detailed and illustrated account of the history of this important and wealthy monastery at Furness_Abbey

There is also a well illustrated history of the abbey from Werbeka at THE FURNESS ABBEY

A reconstruction of Furness Abbey from the north on the eve of the suppression 

Image: werbeka.com

May Our Lady of Furness intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Tynemouth

This is a new addition to the Pilgrimage, and one for which I have very little evidence, but which I think worth including.

The Northumbrian monastery on the headland at Tynemouth was the burial place of the murdered seventh century St Oswin, King of Deira. When in the years after the Norman Conquest his relics were rediscovered a priory was established as a daughter house of Durham Cathedral priory and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St Oswin. It then became a daughter house of St Albans - leading to a prolonged dispute with Durham - and became a place for pilgrimage to the shrine of St Oswin. The suggestion is that because of its joint dedication the priory also became a centre for Marian devotion, and excavation of the monastic church has revealed the foundations of a large Lady Chapel which had been added on at the north east of the presbytery.

Plan of Tynemouth Priory

The large Lady Chapel can be seen at the north-east

Image: GetArchive

Wikipedia has a quite detailed account of the history of the monastery - including a translation of a mid-fourteenth century letter from a St Albans monk exiled to Tynemouth to a friend back in Hertfordshire - and that can be read at Tynemouth_Priory_and_Castle

The remains of the east end of Tynemouth Priory with the Percy chapel beneath. The Lady Chapel was to the right.

Image: easymalc.co.uk

May Our Lady of Tynemouth intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Jesmond

The Pilgrimage now heads to Jesmond, which is now an affluent northern suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, and to the remains of a Norman shrine chapel which still attracts pilgrims..  

My post from last year, again with links to earlier ones on this pilgrimage site, can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Jesmond

In addition both the Wikipedia article at Jesmond and the illustrated one from Historiette at St Mary's Chapel Jesmond give a ‘foundation myth’ about an apparition of the Virgin and Child which led to the building of the chapel at Jesmond. I have not seen a more fully documented account but am sharing it as the only explanation of the pilgrimage tradition to Jesmond I have seen.

The ruins of Jesmond Chapel

Image: Co-Curate

May Our Lady of Jesmond intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray