Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Melford

This is an addition to the itinerary and stays in Suffolk, taking the Pilgrimage to the famous and spectacular parish church at Long Melford.

Long Melford is situated on one of the routes that leads to Walsingham in north Norfolk and there was at the church a miraculous statue venerated as Our Lady of Melford.

Long Melford Church

Image: Flickr - Spencer Means

The church at Long Melford was almost entirely rebuilt between 1467 and 1497, largely, it would appear, at the behest and expense of John Clopton (1423-97) of Kentwell Hall in the parish. It has been suggested that this was in thanksgiving for being the only one of those arrested who escaped execution in 1462 for his involvement in the plot centred on the Earl of Oxford to restore King Henry VI to the throne. Wikipedia has a biography of him at John_Clopton

..

John Clapton 

A portrait of him amongst the superb surviving fifteenth century glass in Long Melford Church

Image: Wikipedia 

Wikipedia has a description of the church at Holy_Trinity_Church,_Long_Melford and Great English Churches had a detailed account and numerous illustrations here

Towards the latter part of this rebuilding programme  Clapton planned to be buried in the Lady Chapel, which I assume contained the devotional image, in the churchyard, but his wife’s death led to the creation of a new chantry for them in the main church. The Lady Chapel lies south of the main church alignment and may in part be the earlier structure at the west and east ends, around which Clapton in 1496 built an all-embracing ambulatory which is, surely, based on the similar structure built in the 1440s over and around the Holy House at Walsingham. Clapton’s work included a clerestory to the original chapel, which was lost after the chapel was reroofed sometime after 1613, and the chapel served as the town’s school from 1670. The chapel was not finished when Clopton died in 1497 and he made provision in his will for its completion.

The ambulatory and entrance to the inner chapel in the Lady Chapel at Long Melford Church

Image: Facebook - Chris Droffats

The interior of the Lady Chapel

Image: Great English Churches

There is much more about the church and the creation of the Lady Chapel in a 2010 article which can be accessed at Z6KvX5PW8TDD773T

May Our Lasy of Melford intercede for us and our intentions

                           Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Kersey

The next stop on the Pilgrimage is the parish church of St Mary at Kersey.

My post on this shrine from last year, again with links to my previous piece about the devotion, can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Kersey

The Suffolk Churches website has a lengthy and illustrated account of the church at Suffolk Churches

Their essay includes a translation of the 1464 grant of an indulgence to pilgrims by Pope Pius II. The text of the bull implies that the church was attracting considerable numbers of pilgrims and that miracles were frequent occurrences.

Kersey Church

The tower was completed in 1481

Image: Wikipedia 

The interior of the church

The mutilated niche which contained the statue of Our Lady of Pity can be seen on the left on the outer wall of the north aisle

Image: Geograph - Michael Garlick

May Our Lady of Kersey intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

The forthcoming exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum

ArtNet has an article about the plans for the display of the Bayeux Tapestry in the major exhibition that will begin in September 10 and run from the autumn until next summer at the British Museum.

Not only will the Tapestry be on display, lying rather than hanging, but also objects either related to it as sources for the details of ships and clothing but also coins of the period and archival material.  

The report about the plans can be seen at British Museum Unveils Elaborate Display for Bayeux Tapestry 

Two of Anne Boleyn’s books on display

Today is the 490th anniversary of the execution of Anne Boleyn at the Tower of London in 1536.

To mark the occasion the BBC News website has an article about two books which belonged to her which are on display as part of a major exhibition about her at one of her family’s homes, Hever Castle in Kent.  

The illustrated account an be seen at Anne Boleyn books shown at Hever Castle on execution anniversary 

Recent studies of Anne and her brother George, Viscount Rochford, have shown that they did have a serious interest in religion and read widely in what is now described as the Evangelical spirit of the 1530s.

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