Walsingham, 2014

Anglican Shrine, this is Richeldis de Faverches, wife of the Lord of the Manor of Walsingham Parva - Little Walsingham. In 1061 she had a series of visions in which she was shown the house where the Annunciation to Mary had occurred. She was asked to build a replica of the house as a place of pilgrimage to Our Lady and this became one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Europe until the Reformation. One of its more famous visitors and donors was Henry VIII, even though, at the reformation, the shrine and staute of Our Lady were destroyed. In 1896, the Slipper Chapel, a short distance from Walsingham, was restored to use by the Catholic Church through the efforts of Charlotte Pearson Boyd. It is said that as this was the final 'station' on the pilgrimage before Walsingham, the pilgrims would remove their shoes and walk the last mile to the shrine barefoot, a tradition which is still observed today. In the 1920s following on from the Tractarian Movement and the Catholic Revival in the Anglican Church, Fr Hope Patten set up a shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham in the Parish Church at Little Walsingham and subsequently in 1931 the Anglican Shrine was established around a replica of the Holy House and sacred well. In 1938 this was enlarged to the building we have today. Both shrines have undergone extensive developments and now work closely together.