Marian Pilgrimage addendum - Our Lady of Guisborough and Our Lady of Mount Grace

As we draw to the end of this May Marian Pilgrimage my memory was suddenly jogged to recall two Yorkshire shrines I had not included, nor had Canon Stevenson on his original list. Yet I am sure I have written about them both - but looking online there they are not! Maybe I am losing it, but maybe not. So, pausing briefly on the last bit of our way to Walsingham, we will return briefly to the North Roding of Yorkshire - courtesy perhaps of a passing crow - to the medieval priories of Guisborough and Mount Grace.

The devotion to Our Lady of Guisborough was located in the Augustinian priory of which little save the east wall of the choir survives, but which does indicate what a splendid building it once was. This monastery was under the patronage of the Brus family, the ancestors of King Robert I of Scots and of all subsequent Scottish monarchs. Not much seems to be recorded about the medieval devotion but it was well established by the early twelfth century. Since 1949 it has been revived in the Catholic parish church in the town with a new icon being installed in 2008. There are some details about the earlier history as well as the revival at The Icon of Our Lady of Guisborough

Further south, and just off the A19, are the fascinating ruins of the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace, founded by King Richard II’s nephew Thomas Holland Duke of Surrey. Today it is not merely far and away the best remains of a medieval English Carthusian site but, to anyone receptive to the spirituality of fifteenth and early sixteenth century England,  a potent and numinous place to visit. Above the plain on which the priory stands on top of the hillside is the Chapel of Our Lady. This may have been built as the object of the regular walk prescribed for the monks. Its remoteness, in a recusant area, led to its use as a hidden Mass centre and later restoration as a place of pilgrimage.

There is a brief introduction to the chapel at Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Grace

and a very useful history of it as medieval chapel, recusant refuge, and modern place of pilgrimage at History

The remains of the priory and the chapel on the hillside above are very special places, eminently worth not just a visit, but indeed a pilgrimage.

Our Lady of Guisborough and Our Lady of Mount Grace pray for The King and The Queen and for us all.