For years I have wanted to visit the medieval Marian shrine at Walsingham, which according to a few predates the Norman Conquest. The Anglican shrine was rebuilt on the edge of the village in the early 20th century. With its many chapels the shrine church was a snapshot of high church life in England immediately after World War I — richly polychromed chapels, beautiful murals, all shimmering with gold. At the center of the shrine church was a copy of “the Holy House”, the house in which Mary received Gabriel’s message that she would bear Jesus. In the Middle Ages there was a great tradition of the Holy House flying all over Europe; it eventually landed in Loretto.
The medieval shrine was destroyed at the time of the Dissolution in the mid 16th century, but the striking ruins of the abbey church can be visited in the park of the manor house built with stone from the abbey. Nearby was the parish church, a large, light-filled and beautifully cared for building set in a large cemetery populated by mating pheasants. Pheasants were everywhere.
I walked around the village and its neighbors Great Walsingham, Little Snoring and Houghton Saint Giles where I visited “the Slipper Chapel” and the Roman Catholic national shrine to Mary. The Slipper Chapel was named after the tradition of pilgrims — Walsingham was the most visited pilgrimage site in medieval England — removing their shoes for the last couple of miles walk to Little Walsingham. I kept my shoes on.
