Barefoot to Walsingham

About trip

In the 11th century, Richeldis de Faverches was lady of the manor in Walsingham. One night the Virgin Mary appeared to her in a dream and told her to build a copy of the Sancta Casa, the ‘Holy House’ in Nazareth where she had been living when the Angel Gabriel announced she was pregnant. Richeldis was torn between two sites for the building, but work began on one of them as soon as she had gathered supplies and labourers. Although the men worked all day, they made little progress. However, it is said that the following morning, the house on the second site had been miraculously completed. A couple of holy springs bubbled up, the sick were cured and soon Walsingham became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the medieval world - perhaps even greater than Canterbury. A Thriving Site of Pilgrimage. The shrine did not remain a small house with two wells for long. As pilgrims flocked here, so did those in the service industry, and soon inns and guest houses for travellers were built. The Church arrived too and Franciscan friars and Augustinian canons built themselves priories. These were simple at first, but as more and more pilgrims arrived and left behind their pennies and their gifts, the priories became larger and more sumptuous. There was a handsome church for pilgrims to pray in and a special chapel for a statue of the Virgin, richly bedecked in jewels and fine cloth. When the Holy Land was retaken by the Infidels after the crusades, it was rumoured that the Virgin Mary had abandoned her original shrine and had come to live in Norfolk instead. One tale even had it that the original Sancta Casa had magically uprooted itself from Nazareth and landed at Walsingham! The shrine was visited by paupers and kings alike, and many monarchs from Richard I to Henry VIII came to pay homage and to ask for favours. Walsingham’s future seemed glitteringly assured. The success of the village lasted for 500 years, until the Reformation. Henry VIII’s dramatic reshuffling of the Church in England involved the destruction of many abbeys, priories and shrines, and Walsingham was among them. The two priories were torn down in the 1530s, so that only fragments remain, and papist practices such as worshipping statues of Mary were forbidden. Walsingham became just like any other village in Tudor England, and so it remained, almost forgotten by the outside world, until the 1930s, when Father Hope Patten revived the shrine. Walsingham has come full circle, and is once again a thriving pilgrimage site. Visitors pour in by the thousand, to visit shrines considered holy by Anglicans and Catholics alike. While you're there: The Wells and Walsingham Light Railway has its terminus at the Walsinghams and will take you to the coast. The Thursford Collection at Thursford has displays of mechanical organs, as well as live entertainment, picnic sites and shops. To the south is Pensthorpe Waterfowl Park and Nature Reserve, a magical 200-acre (81ha) site of lakes, woods and meadows with an exhibition gallery and hides. What to look out for: The grounds of privately owned Walsingham Abbey - which contain 12th-century ruins - are open at certain times and are especially lovely when the snowdrops are in flower. The Shire Hall Museum houses a Georgian courthouse and a prisoner’s lock-up with displays of Walsingham as a place of pilgrimage since 1601. The pumphouse in the village centre originally had a pinnacle, but this broke during celebrations for victory at Mafeking in 1900. In Great Walsingham the Textile Centre has displays of pots, sculpture and carpets, as well as hand-printed screens. Where to eat and drink: As this is a place that anticipates large numbers of pilgrims (there is a coach park), there are a number of cafés and restaurants. The Textile Centre in Great Walsingham has a tea room, and there is a café at the Roman Catholic Slipper Chapel. The White Horse Inn, on the route at East Barsham, serves good food. Directions: Return to the main exit of the car park and turn left, soon to go down Coker’s Hill. Go straight across at the junction along Back Lane. The remains of the Franciscan friary are to your left, incorporated into a private house. At a T-junction, turn right uphill, then where the lane curves right, go left along the Pilgrims’ Way, the route of a dismantled railway. Follow the level gravel path through open country with good views for 1 mile (1.6km). When it ends, turn left into Houghton St Giles and turn right to pass the Slipper Chapel on your left (built in the 1300s and partly destroyed during the Reformation), then past the former railway until you enter North Barsham. At the junction, keep left, and take the lane signposted towards West Barsham, to reach a junction in a shady copse. Take the lane to the left, up the hill with a fir plantation on your right. Go down a hill, past more of the dismantled railway and eventually reaching the village of East Barsham. Turn left at the T-junction and walk past the White Horse Inn. Just after passing a red-brick manor house, turn right into Water Lane, signed to Great Snoring. Look for partridges, yellowhammers and finches in the hedgerows. At the junction, take the righthand turn towards Thursford. (It is possible to take The Greenway to Walsingham shortly after this point, but be warned that it can be extremely boggy.) Continue ahead into Great Snoring, and turn left by the large red-brick house, then quickly reach open fields again. After a mile (1.6 km), look out for an arrowed path on the left and cross a stile into a field. Follow the worn path ahead, which soon curves left to a gate. Continue across pasture to a further stile and turn right along a drive, with the abbey ruins visible ahead. At the road, follow the path left along the back and into St Mary’s churchyard. Exit St Mary’s churchyard via the main gate and then continue walking along the road, turning right at the junction into Little Walsingham. To visit the Anglican shrine, turn right at the pumphouse, topped with a brazier that is lit on state occasions, otherwise keep ahead and then turn immediately left to reach the car park.