Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady at the Pillar St Edmundsbury

The devotion to Our Lady that features on the itinerary created by Canon Stevenson at St Edmundsbury was not in the abbey - which had three Lady Chapels - but was in the largest of the town parish churches, that of St Mary, in the south-west corner of the abbey precinct. My article about it from 2023 can be seen at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady at the Pillar St Edmundsbury

 

Of the three Lady Chapels in the abbey itself the largest was to the north of the presbytery. Unlike those at the other great East Anglian Benedictine houses of Ely, Peterborough and Ramsey it was not free standing but similar to the Elder Lady Chapel at Bristol as an eastward extension of the north transept. I suspect it did attract devotees as Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter chose to be buried there in 1426. I am not sure if he had estates in Suffolk, but his father, Duke John of Lancaster had been a benefactor to the abbey, so the choice may suggest a personal devotion. In the museum in Bury St Edmunds is a modern heraldic locket containing some of Thomas’ hair which was recovered when his grave was excavated in the eighteenth century. It is conceivable that with his tomb in its centre the chapel could have resembled the original layout of the Beauchamp chapel at Warwick.

May Our Lady at the Pillar in St Edmundsbury pray for The King and all the Royal Family and for us all.