On the tourist map for 900 years.
Little Walsingham is a timeless small village of brick, flint and timber frame houses based around the village pump house in the depths of rural Norfolk.
In the Middle Ages, Little Walsingahm was one of the four great shrines and places of pilgrimage alongside Rome, Santiago del Compostella and Jerusalem. All the kings of England from Henry III to Henry VIII visited it. Then came the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and Walsingham became a rural backwater until the arrival of a new Anglo Catholic vicar in the 1920s, who built a new Shrine Church and Little Walsingham was firmly back on the pilgrim and tourist route. But there is more to the village than that...
The story begins in 1061 when Richeldis de Faverches, widow of the Lord of the Manor, had a vision where she was taken by the Virgin Mary to the house in Nazareth where the Angel Gabriel had visited her to tell he she was to be the mother of the Son of God. In her vision, the Virgin Mary asked Richeldis to build a replica of her house in Walsingham. It was to contain a statue of the enthroned Virgin with the child Jesus on her lap.
Richeldis built a simple wooden structure but her son Geoffrey left instructions for the building of a Priory in Walsingham which passed into the care of Augustinian canons sometime between 1146-1174. A great Augustinian Priory grew up round the shrine and the wealth and fame of Walsingham grew and grew.
Two hundred years later, a Franciscan Friary was built at the edge of the village. This naturally upset the canons of the priory who complained with little success that being on the edge of the village, pilgrims would arrive there first and it would divert money away from the priory.
The Shrine and Priory were destroyed during the Dissolution of the monasteries. The Prior and canons were pensioned off. The site was sold to Thomas Sidney for £90 pounds who built a mansion, referred to as the Abbey, using stone from the priory buildings. All that is left is the C14th gateway on High Street and the arch of the great east window. The site of the shrine is marked by a small stone cross in the ground.
The Abbey is privately owned but the surrounding grounds and woodland along with the priory ruins are open to the public. The packhorse bridge over the River Stiffkey is a C19th interpretation of what a medieval bridge might have been like.
In February the grounds are covered with snowdrops and it is a very popular day out.
More is left of the Franciscan Friary, but this is privately owned, not open to the public and only visible from the road.
In 1897, Pope Leo XIII gave permission for the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham to be re-founded in the newly built Roman Catholic Church in King’s Lynn. The first Roman Catholic Pilgrimage was held to the restored C14th Slipper Chapel just outside Little Walsingham. This was the last of the wayside chapels where pilgrims stopped on their way to Walsingham.
In the 1921s, the Anglo-Catholic Alfred Hope-Patten became rector of All Saints’ Church in Little Walsingham. Much to the outrage of the Church of England, he established a small Marian Shrine in the church, with a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham modelled on the medieval priory's seal. The church became known as St Mary and All Saints’. People gathered to pray before the statue and so ignited Anglican interest in Pilgrimage. By the 1930s, numbers of pilgrims had increased so much that Father Patton purchased land in the village opposite the ruined Priory and drew up plans to build a new Shrine Church.
At its heart is the Holy House seen in Richeldis’s dream. The statue of Mary and the Christ Child was taken from St Mary’s Church to be placed above the altar in the Holy House.
The Shrine Church is a magnificent building and in many ways is more like a continental Catholic Church with all its small chapels, brightly painted walls, relic of the Holy Cross and banks of candles.
It even has a small Russian Orthodox chapel which was used by Eastern Orthodox prisoners based near here during the Second World War.
It also contains the Holy Well dating from the C11th and which was discovered when the foundations of the church were dug. The waters were thought to have healing properties and Sprinkling of the Waters Healing Services are held throughout the year.
The site has grown and expanded over the years with accommodation for pilgrims, visitor centre, cafe and shop. Pilgrims arrive in their thousands and Little Walsingham is very much back on the tourist map.
As well as the shrine, there are plenty of other things to see around the village. St Mary and All Saints' Church burnt down in 1961 leaving only the tower and wall standing and has been carefully restored.
It is now a bright an airy building with a modern feel. Fortunately the seven sacrament font survived and is considered to be one of the best in the country.
There is a very stylish brick and flint Roman Catholic Church built in 2006 and Britain’s first carbon neutral church.
The Methodist Chapel is a lot older being built in 1784 and still has its unspoilt Georgian interior. It is one of the oldest Methodist chapels still in regular use in East Anglia.
Perhaps the most surprising find is the tiny Russian Orthodox Chapel of St Seraphim in the old station building on the edge of the village.
Russian Orthodox Pilgrimages began soon after the Shrine Church opened and the Shrine Church contains a small Russian Orthodox Chapel. The Missionary Brotherhood of St Seraphim were asked to take responsibility for the chapel and established a permanent Orthodox presence in Walsingham. They converted the disused station building into a small chapel, dedicated to St Seraphim. This was followed by another church in nearby Great Walsingham. St Seraphim became a centre for iconography and the chapel’s founder, Father David, painted icons here until his death, using the traditional techniques. Many of the icons are on display in the chapel.
During the C18th and C19th, Walsingham was a thriving legal and administrative centre, with the Quarter and Petty Sessions held in the Shirehall. The Georgian Court room still survives and was in use until 1971. The Shirehall is now open with a small museum of local history, although the main attraction is the court room.
Just a few minutes walk away is the Bridewell set up as a House of Correction in 1598, to house vagrants and beggars, with the intention to train them in useful trades. It has survived virtually untouched since it closed and a key is available from the Shirehall Museum to see the original prison cells.
The railway line may have been a casualty of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, but part of the line has been reopened as the narrow gauge 10 ¼ inch Wells to Walsingham Light Railway which runs steam services along four miles of track from Easter to the end of October. It even has two miniature Bayer Garrett locos specially built for the line.
There are two pubs as well as a cafe on High Street and another in the Shrine complex. You can join a guided walk around the village or for those wanting a longer walk there are ideas here.
I visited Little Walsingham on a cold and damp day in mid February.
Little Walsingham is a timeless small village of brick, flint and timber frame houses based around the village pump house in the depths of rural Norfolk.
In the Middle Ages, Little Walsingahm was one of the four great shrines and places of pilgrimage alongside Rome, Santiago del Compostella and Jerusalem. All the kings of England from Henry III to Henry VIII visited it. Then came the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and Walsingham became a rural backwater until the arrival of a new Anglo Catholic vicar in the 1920s, who built a new Shrine Church and Little Walsingham was firmly back on the pilgrim and tourist route. But there is more to the village than that...
The story begins in 1061 when Richeldis de Faverches, widow of the Lord of the Manor, had a vision where she was taken by the Virgin Mary to the house in Nazareth where the Angel Gabriel had visited her to tell he she was to be the mother of the Son of God. In her vision, the Virgin Mary asked Richeldis to build a replica of her house in Walsingham. It was to contain a statue of the enthroned Virgin with the child Jesus on her lap.
Richeldis built a simple wooden structure but her son Geoffrey left instructions for the building of a Priory in Walsingham which passed into the care of Augustinian canons sometime between 1146-1174. A great Augustinian Priory grew up round the shrine and the wealth and fame of Walsingham grew and grew.
Two hundred years later, a Franciscan Friary was built at the edge of the village. This naturally upset the canons of the priory who complained with little success that being on the edge of the village, pilgrims would arrive there first and it would divert money away from the priory.
The Shrine and Priory were destroyed during the Dissolution of the monasteries. The Prior and canons were pensioned off. The site was sold to Thomas Sidney for £90 pounds who built a mansion, referred to as the Abbey, using stone from the priory buildings. All that is left is the C14th gateway on High Street and the arch of the great east window. The site of the shrine is marked by a small stone cross in the ground.
The Abbey is privately owned but the surrounding grounds and woodland along with the priory ruins are open to the public. The packhorse bridge over the River Stiffkey is a C19th interpretation of what a medieval bridge might have been like.
In February the grounds are covered with snowdrops and it is a very popular day out.
More is left of the Franciscan Friary, but this is privately owned, not open to the public and only visible from the road.
In 1897, Pope Leo XIII gave permission for the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham to be re-founded in the newly built Roman Catholic Church in King’s Lynn. The first Roman Catholic Pilgrimage was held to the restored C14th Slipper Chapel just outside Little Walsingham. This was the last of the wayside chapels where pilgrims stopped on their way to Walsingham.
In the 1921s, the Anglo-Catholic Alfred Hope-Patten became rector of All Saints’ Church in Little Walsingham. Much to the outrage of the Church of England, he established a small Marian Shrine in the church, with a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham modelled on the medieval priory's seal. The church became known as St Mary and All Saints’. People gathered to pray before the statue and so ignited Anglican interest in Pilgrimage. By the 1930s, numbers of pilgrims had increased so much that Father Patton purchased land in the village opposite the ruined Priory and drew up plans to build a new Shrine Church.
At its heart is the Holy House seen in Richeldis’s dream. The statue of Mary and the Christ Child was taken from St Mary’s Church to be placed above the altar in the Holy House.
The Shrine Church is a magnificent building and in many ways is more like a continental Catholic Church with all its small chapels, brightly painted walls, relic of the Holy Cross and banks of candles.
It even has a small Russian Orthodox chapel which was used by Eastern Orthodox prisoners based near here during the Second World War.
It also contains the Holy Well dating from the C11th and which was discovered when the foundations of the church were dug. The waters were thought to have healing properties and Sprinkling of the Waters Healing Services are held throughout the year.
The site has grown and expanded over the years with accommodation for pilgrims, visitor centre, cafe and shop. Pilgrims arrive in their thousands and Little Walsingham is very much back on the tourist map.
As well as the shrine, there are plenty of other things to see around the village. St Mary and All Saints' Church burnt down in 1961 leaving only the tower and wall standing and has been carefully restored.
It is now a bright an airy building with a modern feel. Fortunately the seven sacrament font survived and is considered to be one of the best in the country.
There is a very stylish brick and flint Roman Catholic Church built in 2006 and Britain’s first carbon neutral church.
The Methodist Chapel is a lot older being built in 1784 and still has its unspoilt Georgian interior. It is one of the oldest Methodist chapels still in regular use in East Anglia.
Perhaps the most surprising find is the tiny Russian Orthodox Chapel of St Seraphim in the old station building on the edge of the village.
Russian Orthodox Pilgrimages began soon after the Shrine Church opened and the Shrine Church contains a small Russian Orthodox Chapel. The Missionary Brotherhood of St Seraphim were asked to take responsibility for the chapel and established a permanent Orthodox presence in Walsingham. They converted the disused station building into a small chapel, dedicated to St Seraphim. This was followed by another church in nearby Great Walsingham. St Seraphim became a centre for iconography and the chapel’s founder, Father David, painted icons here until his death, using the traditional techniques. Many of the icons are on display in the chapel.
During the C18th and C19th, Walsingham was a thriving legal and administrative centre, with the Quarter and Petty Sessions held in the Shirehall. The Georgian Court room still survives and was in use until 1971. The Shirehall is now open with a small museum of local history, although the main attraction is the court room.
Just a few minutes walk away is the Bridewell set up as a House of Correction in 1598, to house vagrants and beggars, with the intention to train them in useful trades. It has survived virtually untouched since it closed and a key is available from the Shirehall Museum to see the original prison cells.
The railway line may have been a casualty of the Beeching cuts in the 1960s, but part of the line has been reopened as the narrow gauge 10 ¼ inch Wells to Walsingham Light Railway which runs steam services along four miles of track from Easter to the end of October. It even has two miniature Bayer Garrett locos specially built for the line.
There are two pubs as well as a cafe on High Street and another in the Shrine complex. You can join a guided walk around the village or for those wanting a longer walk there are ideas here.
I visited Little Walsingham on a cold and damp day in mid February.
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