Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Walsingham

So finally, perhaps mentally footsore after the curious and circuitous route, and in need of a drink ( or two, or more )  at The Bull or another of Walsingham’s hostelries after making our devotions, the Pilgrimage finally arrives at its destination, England’s Nazareth, the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

 After this possibly arduous journey there is not just the reward of arriving in the holy and blessed place that is Walsingham - and I assure readers that it is so - there are, for historic and institutional reasons two shrines, not one, and neither on the original site of the Holy House and the adjacent Augustinian Priory. All that survives above ground is the east wall and gable of the church, plus fragments of the domestic buildings, a gateway and the holy wells. Of the original Holy House and its later surrounding structure nothing is to be seen. The canons and local laypeople provided some martyrs as the shrine was destroyed, and it fell something like two generations later to St Philip Howard to record the desolation in “Walsingham Farewell”. 

 

The Slipper Chapel 

Built circa 1325 and now part of the Catholic National Shrine

Image: walsinghamvillage.org

   

The interior of the restored Slipper Chapel

Image: walsinghamvillage.org

 

The history of the restoration and development of the contemporary Catholic shrine can be read at

The history of the restoration of the Slipper Chapel and the creation of the contemporary Catholic National Shrine  - now a minor basilica - can be read at The Roman Catholic Shrine of our Lady, the Slipper Chapel • Walsingham, Norfolk

The traditional narrative that pilgrims removed their footwear to walk barefoot the Old English Mile - slightly longer than a Statute one - into the village tends to stress the idea that this was penitential. That may well be the case, but I wonder if it was also because Walsingham was seen as being holy ground.

There is more about the history of Walsingham and the tradition of pilgrimage at The history of Walsingham, Norfolk

The statue in the Anglican created in the 1920s and based upon the Priory seal

Image: stmarybonita.org

The interior of the Holy House in the Anglican Shrine 

It is the same size as the medieval one

The altar and tester are by Sir Ninian Comper

The statue of Our Lady wears a festal cope

Image: explorenorfolkuk.co.uk

There is a detailed reconstruction of what it would have been to be in Walsingham in an article by the late John Ashdown-Hill in The Ricardian This describes the pilgrimage made in 1469 by King Edward IV and his younger brother the Duke of Gloucester. It can be read at HhlhTwKnA2heZ853I

A cut-away reconstruction of the Holy House and priory church in the period 1500-35

The Holy House is shown as being wattle and daub but archaeological investigation suggests the structure was made of split tree trunks like the church at Greensted in Essex

The well house for the springs can be seen at the top left

Image: Stephen Conlin - MeisterDrucke

 My previous posts about aspects of the Walsingham shrine, including material about the possible survival of the original statue, now known as the Langham Madonna in the V&A, and my own sense of involvement and belonging at the Shrines, can be accessed from that for last year at Marian Pilgrimage - Our Lady of Walsingham 

The Langham Madonna and the modern Catholic shrine  statue

 

Image: The Living Church 

 

May Our Lady of Walsingham intercede for us and our intentions 

Jesu mercy, Mary pray