This article is an addition to the other stops on the Pilgrimage. In previous years I checked to see if there were examples of surviving Catholic Marian shrines in the notably recusant county of Lancashire. The only one I came across was the Ladyewell at Fernyhalgh just outside Preston. This, however, appeared to not have a recorded history before the 1680s and we have been a product of the recusant era. I therefore did not include it as this Pilgrimage is concerned with medieval places of devotion.
However, being a bit persistent, I looked again online and found other sites which gave more details and indicate that what is now the Lancaster diocesan shrine of the Ladyewell and the recusant church and school at Fernyhalgh does indeed have a late medieval origin, in 1471, and may indeed be a restoration of an older shrine. I am therefore very happy to add it to the route.
Wikipedia gives an introduction to the site at St Mary's Church, Fernyhalgh
Our Lady’s well Preston gives more information than other sites about earlier chapels on or close to the site. It also suggests that the site replaced, or supplemented another, now lost, Lady Well near the site of the Franciscan friary in Preston. Its loss was a either consequence of the reformation or of the development of the town in the nineteenth century.
Other articles recount the story of the 1471 vow and the quest for Fernyhalgh as named in a revelation to the stranded seafarer at A Lancashire tribute to Our Lady - The Christian Heritage Centre, at Our Lady’s Well (Ladyewell), Fernyhalgh, Lancashire,
The story of the straying cow and the crab apples is very reminiscent of a longstanding English ‘legendary’ tradition associated with miraculous discoveries and foundations going back to Anglo-Saxon writers, notably in the Mercian shires. This fact may help to give a context for what might seem a mere folk tale, or, indeed, simply implausible.
Those of you who are intrigued by the death of the “last English Carthusian” in 1821, and think either they all died in the sixteenth century or think “what about Parkminster?” the answer lies elsewhere. James Finch, who died aged 72 in 1821, not as one site says in 1621 - which does not fit for authentic dating - must have been the last member of what was known as Sheen Anglorum in what is now Belgium. This was the Charterhouse founded by King Henry V at Sheen ( now Richmond ) and which went into exile like the nearby Bridgettines of Syon after the death of Queen Mary I. They survived as a house for English monks abroad until the misguided reforming enthusiasm of the interfering Emperor Joseph II closed such contemplative Orders in 1783. There is an account of the monastery from Wikipedia at Sheen Anglorum Charterhouse
May Our Lady of Fernyhalgh pray for Pope Leo XIV
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