Thursday Group Walsingham Trip

31 March 2005

This was the first of two Walsingham trips organised in 2005. On this occasion Diane Hicks drove the van containing Michael B, JQ, Catherine Rees, Lady Catherine, Jim, Norm, Vickie, David, David, Nigel and Sunny.

Walsingham is a unique place of pilgrimage. Anyone who visits the town and its shrines, whatever their beliefs, can not fail to be moved and impressed by its mystery and history. In the Middle Ages, it attracted more pilgrims than the shrine of St Thomas A Becket at Canterbury.

 Walsingham is sometimes called "England's Nazareth". The reason dates back to the 11th century and the year 1061 when  Richeldis de Faverches, a Saxon noblewoman, had a vision in which she was taken by Mary to the house in Nazareth where Gabriel had announced the news of the birth of Jesus. Mary asked Richeldis to build an exact replica of that house in Walsingham.

The original shrine was destroyed in the 1530s at the time of the Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries. The present Shrine Church was built in the twentieth century when interest in Walsingham was rekindled after centuries of neglect. This is where the Holy House is located - a replica of the home in Nazareth of Joseph, Mary and Jesus - which Richeldis de Faverches was  told to build in her vision nearly a thousand years ago.

The Holy House contains the image of Our Lady of Walsingham, carved in 1922 and copied from the seal of the medieval Priory which was suppressed in 1538. The original statue was taken to London and destroyed in the 16th century.

For more information about the Anglican and Catholic shrines, go to http://www.walsinghamanglican.org.uk/the_shrine/the_story_so_far.htm.

After our visit to the Anglican Shrine some of us went into the village of Little Walsingham in search of statuary and souvenirs.

Food was very much on everyone's minds by this stage, so we headed to Wells-next-the Sea and its excellent chip shops. We ate our fish and chips out of the paper in the open air, by far the best way.