Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Derby

Returning to the midlands the Pilgrimage now pauses at a Marian shrine  of which I nothing until today although I was aware of it as a Catholic shrine. It is the bridge chapel of St Mary at one end of the bridge, also known as St Mary’s, which crosses the Derwent in Derby. 

Probably first built in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century it was apparently extended and rebuilt in the fifteenth century with provision for an anchores, as well as the chantry priest. By this time it was under the jurisdiction of the collegiate church of All Saints, which was itself under the authority of the Dean of Lincoln Cathedral. Like the bridge All Saints was, save for its great west tower, rebuilt in the eighteenth century and since 1927 has served as the cathedral of the Anglican diocese of Derby. Today it once more has the bridge chapel as part of its responsibilies.

St Mary’s Chapel 

Image: Wikipedia 

Apparently by the late fifteenth century the chapel on the bridge housed a statue of the Virgin and Child which was black. It attracted more offerings than any other church in the town apart from the shrine of St Alkmund in the church dedicated to him.

After the suppression of the chantries the building had many uses and not a few alterations, until it was rescued and restored in the twentieth century.

The interior

Image: Discover Derby

Wikipedia has an illustrated account of the chapel at St_Mary's_Bridge_Chapel, and the cathedral website has one at The Bridge Chapel, 

The south side of the chapel and the bridge

Image: Wikipedia 

Today the chapel is still a place of pilgrimage, nowadays commemorating three Catholic priests who were martyred nearby in July 1588. They were Nicholas_Garlick, Robert_Ludlam and Richard_Simpson. After their execution their heads and quarters were displayed at St Mary's chapel, which by then was serving as a prison before being set up around the town.

John Speed’s map of Derby of 1611

St Mary’s chapel  and bridge are at the top right

Image: The Old Map Company

May Our Lady of Derby intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage- Our Lady of the Park at Liskeard

The Pilgrimage makes its one visit to the further south west and to the shrine of Our Lady of the Park at Liskeard. 

My article about it from last year, and those from previous years, incorporate several links to websites about the site and attempts to re-establish it as a place of pilgrimage. I will say that some of those moves do reveal something of ‘Celtic’ and ‘New Age’ spirituality which are things about which I am somewhat supicious. That is not to deny the long established tradition of devotion there, or the good intentions of those seeking a revival.

 

Last year’s post can be accessed at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Park at Liskeard

I will also add the link to a Facebook site on Cornish Holy Wells. This commences with pictures of the Lady Park well. The text suggests that the medieval chapel was incorporated into the house at Lady Park, and one of the photographs indicates the proximity of the house and the well. 

The site also indicates the frequency of such wells in Cornwall and can be seen at Cornish holy, ancient, healing, and historic wells | Ladye Park, near Moorswater, Liskeard

Another post on that site indicates that Liskeard abounded in holy wells, notaably another one still known as Lady Well in the town centre that was being ‘searched’, presumably for coins given in offering, by the local authorities in 1574-5. This can be seen at Holy Wells of Cornwall *Group* | Lady Well, Liskeard

May Our Lady of the Park at Liskeard intercede for us and our intentions 

 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray 

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of All Hallows Barking by the Tower

Returning to the City of London the Pilgrimage now stops at a shrine that enjoyed much royal interest and patronage from the thirteenth century onwards. This was at the church of All Hallows Barking by the Tower.

My post from last year, with links to previous ones, can be seen at Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of All Hallows Barking by the Tower

I would urge those who are interested and have the time to read the fascinating and very detailed account of the church down to 1548 from the Survey of London which is linked to in the earliest of those posts, and which I am reproducing here. The later history of the church is also given in the same volume.

  

The church is very well worth visiting for all that the fabric has suffered over the centuries.

The Tower of London and its environs in 1597

All Hallows can be seen on the extreme top left 

Image: A London Inheritance 

    

 

All Hallows from the north

The Lady Chapel with the statue and the location of the Royal Chantry probably stood where the pavement or road now run

The copper spire is a striking addition made during the post WWII restoration 

Image: Gants Hill URC

May Our Lady of All Hallows Barking by the Tower intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Aylesford

Heading back towards London the Pilgrimage comes to the Medway and to the Carmelite friary at Aylesford. This was founded in 1242, dissolved in 1538, and re-founded by the Order in some of the original buildings in 1949. 

My posts from previous years can be found through last year’s article at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Aylesford

The Carnelites have an excellent illustrated online history of the house at The Friars - Aylesford Priory
 

A reconstruction of the medieval friary

Image: the friars.org.uk

Aylesford today
     
Image: the friars.org.uk

May Our Lady of  Aylesford intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Bradstow at Broadstairs

This shrine on the coast of Thanet is one I added to the Pilgrimage two years ago.  My articles about it can be accessed, along with a number of additional links about its history, from last year’s post at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Bradstow at Broadstairs

  

The much altered and adapted remains of the chapel today. A plaque indicating the history of the building can be seen on the left

Image: Rob Baker on Facebook

May Our Lady of Bradstow intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Poulton

After our spiritual equivalent of a ‘booze cruise’ we resume the Pilgrimage with the next stage on the Kentish leg.  This is the shrine of Our Lady at Poulton, a short distance north-west of Dover.

The shrine fell under the authority of the nearby Premonstratensian - better known these days as the Norbertines -  abbey of St Radegund which was founded in 1191. Whilst nothing survives on site of the shrine there are still quite extensive remains of the abbey. 

Wikipedia has an account of the history and remains of the monastery at St._Radegund's_Abbey and there is a more detailed one from The Dover Historian, which includes a rather improbable reconstruction drawing, at St Radegund’s Abbey

There are much better ones in what is a very detailed study of the remains and closely argued  reinterpretation of them from Kent History and Archaeology at St Radegund Abbey - A Re-Assessment of the Abbey Churc

All that physically remains of the Poulton shrine is a fifteenth century pilgrim badge in what is now designated the London Museum. Their online photograph will not copy, but what it depicts is an enthroned Virginand Child, reminiscent of Our Lady of Walsingham. The throne has a high gabled back with pinnacles, very much in the style of St Edward’s Chair at Westminster.. Beneath the Virgin’s feet the figure is identified by the letters POL followd by an image of a tun

May Our Lady of Poulton intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Calais

As the Pilgrimage has got to Dover it seems a pity not to journey to the one piece of medieval English territory in the area that is no longer English  (grrrr) - the town and pale of Calais. 

Calais was held by the English Crown from August 1347 until January 1557/8. It was definitely English, the original French inhabitants having been expelled, but it was a doubtless cosmopolitan community because of its trading and diplomatic importance. N the later years of King Henry VIII’s reign it was fully incorporated into England, sending two MPs to Parliament and becoming part of the diocese of Canterbury.

Little survived of the medieval and early modern centre after the second world war, but one of the medieval buildings that did, although much damaged and in need of extensive repair, was the church of Notre Dame, or as it was known under English rule, St Mary’s.

Some websites claimed special devotion to the Virgin arose during the English siege in 1347. After Calais passed back under French rule the sanctuary was extensively remodelled in an early seventeenth century Counter Reformation style in honour of Our Lady A new eastern chapel in her honour was also added..

The church was largely rebuilt in the second half of the fifteenth century. It is one of the few in France that is often seen as exhibiting the distinctive English perpendicular style, although that that has, in my opinion, left evidence elsewhere in the lands then under English rule.

Wikipedia records the discovery in 1843 of wall paintings from the English era, one of which featured the Virgin and Child. The article can be seen at Eglise Notre-Dame_de_Calais

In the time of English governance the church was visited by virtually every monarch and their consorts when they were in Calais either for peace or war. It was also in the church that the Duke of Bedford, as Regent of English France, conferred the Cardinal’s red hat on his uncle Henry Beaufort in 1426.

The church from the north-west

Image: Wikipedia 

The interior looking east

Image: Wikipedia 

May Our Lady of  Calais interced for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray.   

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Pity in the Rock at Dover

The Pilgrimage now returns to Kent for visits to another four shrines, together with a little additional excursion.

The first of these is the now lost one of Our Lady of Pity intgeRoch close to the harbour in Dover. This was especially frequented by travellers to and from Calais and the continent, either seeking a safe crossing or giving thanks for one.

My previous posts with a detailed account I wrote in 2020 and other links can be accessed from Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Pity in the Rock at Dover

To those I would add an article from the website of Dover Museun which gives more detail about the decay of the site from the later sixteenth century and its final destruction in the early nineteenth century. This can be seen  at Archcliffe Chapel Biography.

The embarkation of King Henry VIII at Dover for the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520

This painting dated to 1520-40 shows Dover harbour and the castle at a time when the shrine of Our Lady was still actively frequented by travellers

 

Image: Royal Collection and Wikipedia

May Our Lady of Pity in the Rock at Dover intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of The Four Tapers at St Albans

The Pilgrimage now returns to south-eastern England and the great medieval - and indeed modern - destination for pilgrims of St Albans. 

On this Pilgrimage the focus is less on St Alban and St Amphibalus, though they should never be ignored, but on a particular focus of Marian devotion, the statue and altar of Our Lady of the Four Tapers. This altar was, and is, in the south-east corner of the presbytery ambulatory, and just to the right of the Lady Chapel.

My post from last year has links to those from earlier years, most notably that from 2020 which sets out the quite complicated story of the moves of this devotion around the abbey church. We know more about these relocations thanks to the great tradition at St Albans of maintaining I I a chronicle. 

 

These links can all be accessed from Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of the Four Tapers in St Albans

St Albans Cathedral and Abbey is, in my opinion, with its amazing fusion of medieval history, art and architecture, and its legacy of prayer and spirituality, one of the most intensely moving historic churches to visit. The damage and neglect it suffered for several centuries, followed by an over-enthusiastic late Victorian restoration give it a vulnerability that is almost palpable. 

  

St Albans Abbey in the late middle ages 

Image: Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban and St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society

May Our Lady of The Four Tapers at St Albans intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Kingswood

Returning to the southern Cotswolds the Pilgrimage now goes to the Cistercian abbey of Kingswood near Dursley.

My post from last year, which has links to those from previous years, can be read at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Kingswood

Kingswood Abbey Gatehouse

The roof timbers are dated to 1441-1466

Image: britainexpress.com

 

The roof bosses in the vault 

Some author infer that the central boss is a Tudor Rose suggesting a sixteenth century date, but the boss has six petals, not five. The boss to the right looks like the Yorkist sun in splendour

Image: britainexpress.com

Rereading the excellent English Heritage account, which an be read at History of Kingswood Abbey Gatehouse and thinking about the skilled iconography built into the gatehouse of this monastery dedicated to the Virgin, leads me to wonder if the statue venerated as Our Lady of Kingswood might even have been in fact the one here, on the outer face of the gate.

  

The empty niche in the abbey gatehouse. The Holy Spirit can be seen descending at the top left of the canopy

Image: English Heritage

The lily carved on the mullion of the window over the gate

Image: britainexpress.con

May Our Lady of Kingswood intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray 

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Allingtree

Moving to Herefordshire the Pilgrimage now goes to the shrine of Our Lady of Allingtree, on the western edge of Hereford.

Close to the site is the modern Catholic Church of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs which was completed in 1996. By its dedication it seeks to commemorate the lost chapel www was and the Herefordshire  martyrs of the recusant era. Taking Stock has a description of it at Hereford - Our Lady Queen of Martyrs 

My notes from previous years about this shrine of which virtually nothing is recorded can be accessed from last year’s post ar Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of Allingtree

I have done a little more online research about Allingtree or Aylingtree. This reveals that what were called the Gallows Tumps were situated south of the city near Belmont Road ( A465). My online source says this was the earliest recorded execution site in Hereford, and that between 1737 and 1789, it saw 54 confirmed public executions. This cannot be entirely true as Widemarsh Common to the north of the city centre was the setting for the martyrdom  of St John Kemble in 1679. The map by John Speed does not indicate any gallows close to the city. It does perhaps suggest however that the medieval chapel was not close to a place of execution.

May Our Lady of Allingtree intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady’s Well Hempsted

This is a new addition to the Pilgrimage itinerary and is located at Hempsted, a formerly a separate village, but which now has become a suburb of Gloucester. 

There is an online account of the structure and the story of the pilgrimage tradition. How old the institution narrative is not given. It might be an old tradition or it might be a pious fable from more recent centuries - one always has to be careful when Joseph of Arimathea turns up in such stories. The article can be seen here

There is more about the well house and this is an account with better illustrations from Wikipedia at Our_Lady's_Well,_Hempsted

The history and popular lore about the well is discussed in The Holy and Ancient Wells and Springs of Gloucester – Our Lady’s Well, Hempsted

There are more pictures of the well house at Lady's Well (Gloucestershire)

May Our Lady of Hempsted intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

 

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury Abbey is the next station for the Pilgrimage. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary it appears to have been a place of Marian devotion long before the foundation of the Benedictine church we see today in 1121.

My article from last year has links to posts from previous years about this shrine, its destruction and modern moves to restore the tradition of Marian devotion in the Abbey. These can be accessed from Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of Tewkesbury

 

Tewkesbury Abbey

The foundations of the destroyed Lady Chapel can be seen in the turf. The line of the vault can be seen above the west window of the chapel and the blocked entrance arch is beneath. Until it collapsed in 1559 the tower had a timber and lead spire

Image: voicemap.me

May Our Lady of Tewkesbury intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Worcester

The Pilgrimage now goes to Worcester Cathedral which had a famous statue of Our Lady. 

My post about it from last year has links to previous ones, and I especially urge readers to work through them to my original 2020 post which reveals contemporary material from 1538 about the nature of popular devotion and the hostility of the new Henrician establishment. This can be accessed from Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Worcester

Medieval pilgrims would probably have approached the cathedral from the north, as do visitors today. Unlike the modern visitor the medieval pilgrim would have seen a number of features which have, regrettably been lost, including the gateways on this side of the Close.

Some of the disastrous city planning from the late eighteenth century onwards, and infamously in the 1960s, at this crucial point is set out in an article from Worcester News here

Worcester Cathedral before the nineteenth century restoration with a large late medieval window in the east wall rather than the reconstructed lancets that are there today and massive flying buttresses.

To the right is the medieval parish church of St Michael

Bedwardine which served the Close, but was demolished in 1843

Image: findagrave.com 

Further along was the detached bell tower or Clochium which stood about 210 feet high. It was built about 1220, but stripped of its lead roof in 1647 and subsequently demolished.

Worcester Cathedral before the Civil War

Image: Dean and Chapter of Worcester

May Our Lady of Worcester intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Evesham

The Pilgrimage now heads west to the valley of the Avon and then the Severn, making its first stop at Evesham. Here was the great Benedictine abbey apparently founded at Our Lady’s request when she appeared to Eoves the swineherd who then brought St Egwin the bishop to meet her and receive her command.

Early twentieth century stained  glass window in St Lawrence’s Church depicting the story of the apparition of Our Lady at Evesham

Image: Archdiocese of Birmingham 

In recent years pilgrimages to Evesham have increased in number. This year the organisation Our Lady of Christendom are having a walking pilgrimage from Oxford to Evesham on July 4-6. There are details on their website at Our Lady of Christendom – United Kingdom

My post from last year about the Marian tradition at Evesham has links to those from previous years, and these can all be accessed from Marian pilgrimage - Our Lady of Evesham 

Although only fragments of the abbey remain above ground the town still has two medieval parish churches, the famous detached bell tower, and an excellent museum in The Almonry. In addition there is the site of the battle in 1264 and, just outside the town at Wood Norton, the onetime home, now a hotel, of the exiled Orleanist royal house of France in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. So a modern pilgrimage to Evesham can also take in a lot of history in an attractive town on the banks of the Avon. 

The appearance of the monastic church can in part be reconstructed by using notes made just before the dissolution in one of the books belonging to the monastery which include the height of the spire. The notes also include a record of how the King’s commissioners to take the surrender of the abbey turned up in January 1540 during Vespers and would not allow the community to finish singing the Office.

Reconstruction model of EveshamAbbey on the eve of the dissolution.

All that survives today are the two parish churches and the detached bell tower on the right and the doorway to the Chapter House vestibule

Image: Evesham Abbey Trust

The most recent plan of the site of Evesham Abbey

Image: Evesham Abbey Trust

May Our Lady of Evesham intercede for us and our intentions

Jesu mercy, Mary pray

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

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