Patrick Comerford
During my three or four days in Walsingham, where I was speaking at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage last week, I visited at least ten churches and chapels in Walsingham, including the Shrine Church and the Holy House, where much of our worship took place last week.
The Anglican Shrine occupies an island site in the small village of Little Walsingham in north Norfolk, close to the ruins of the original mediaeval priory. The present shrine was gradually created from 1931 on from derelict farm buildings and cottages, and a new Shrine Church was built in the south-east corner of beautiful grounds close to the centre of Little Walsingham.
The grounds include the Shrine Church, gardens, several chapels, a refectory, a café, a shrine shop, a visitors’ centre, the Pilgrim Hall, an orangery, the college, which is home to priests-associate when in residence, and a large number of residential blocks that provide accommodation for pilgrims.
At the heart of the Shrine Church is the Holy House, a replica of the house in Nazareth where the Virgin Mary heard from the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation that she was to be the mother of Jesus.
The Shrine Church and the shrine date back to the appointment of Father Alfred Hope Patten as the Vicar of Walsingham in 1921. He rekindled Anglican interest in the pre-Reformation pilgrimage, and he created a new statue of Our Lady of Walsingham based on the image seen in the mediaeval seal of Walsingham Priory.
His statue was first set up in the Parish Church of Saint Mary and All Saints in 1922. From the first night that the statue was placed there, people gathered around it to pray, asking the Virgin Mary to join her prayers with theirs.
The trickle of pilgrims became a flood of large numbers as the 1920s unfolded, and a Pilgrim Hospice or hostel was opened to meet the needs of pilgrims. In 1931, a new Holy House encased in a small pilgrimage church was dedicated and the statue was moved there with great solemnity.
However, the then Bishop of Norfolk, Bertram Pollock, insisted in 1930 that Father Patten remove the image of Our Lady of Walsingham from the parish church. Undeterred, Patten sought financial help from supporters, principally Sir William Milner, and he was able to buy a suitable plot of land in the village with the intention of building a new Holy House enclosed within a small church.
The land on which the Shrine was built was donated by Sir William Frederick Victor Mordaunt Milner (1896-1960), and the Shrine Church was built around the Holy House – a replica of the home in Nazareth of Joseph, Mary and Jesus, the Holy Family.
The church was designed by the architects Milner & Craze, the architectural practice of Sir William Milner and Romilly Bernard Craze (1892-1974).
Sir William Frederick Victor Mordaunt Milner (1896-1960), who donated the site of the shrine, was the professional partner of Romilly Bernard Craze in the architectural firm of Milner & Craze from 1931. The architect Sir William Frederick Victor Mordaunt Milner (1893-1960) was a godson of Queen Mary and the son of Sir Frederick George Milner, Conservative MP for York (1883-1885) and Bassetlaw (1890-1906).
He was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, and after time as a lieutenant during World War I he returned to Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1919, MA 1934). He was partner of Milner and Craze, architects in London and was a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA).
Milner bought Parcevall Hall in 1927 from a Skipton antique dealer, Frank Laycock, and set about restoring the house with great skill and vision, preserving its original features, salvaging timbers from 17th century buildings and employing local master craftsmen to cut and dress the stone and recast plaster mouldings. He planted rare species from Western China and Tibet, and co-founded Harlow Carr Gardens near Harrogate.
Milner, who succeeded his father as the eighth baronet in 1931, was a deeply religious and shy man. He never married, and when he died in 1960 he bequeathed Parcevall Hall to the Guardians of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. The guardians now manage the estate and gardens, and the hall is leased and run by the Diocese of Leeds.
Milner’s partner in Milner & Craze was the church architect Romilly Bernard Craze (1892-1974). Much of Craze’s work involved replacing or repairing churches destroyed or damaged during World War II, although he also produced some distinctive churches of his own.
Craze reordered many churches in the Diocese of London, and rebuilt (1953-1963) Pugin's Roman Catholic Cathedral of Saint George, Southwark (1841-1848) on the original plan, with details in what has been described as ‘a curiously desiccated Arts-and-Crafts Free Gothic’.
Milner & Craze built the Shrine Church in Walsingham in 1931-1937 in a vaguely Italianate style, with an interior that is spatially complex for such a small building. The design reflects many of the features that would have been familiar to mediaeval pilgrims.
It soon became apparent that the shrine church was too small for the growing number of pilgrims. It was extended to its present length In 1938. The original east end was pulled down, and its site marked in the pavement by a line of grey bricks. The chancel includes the stalls of the 20 Guardians of the Shrine with appropriate heraldic decoration.
The arcades carried on to form a new nave and choir, with an apse and various side-chapels. The new, enlarged church was blessed on Whit Monday 1938. The side aisles were added later in 1964 and 1972.
Patten’s desire to return to the richness in the Church’s worship and the ornamentation of its buildings is reflected in the colourful paintings, statues and decorative work in the Shrine Church.
The walls are richly decorated with murals, many of them designed and painted by the artist Enid Chadwick who lived in the village for many years until she died. Work by the architect Sir Ninian Comper in the church includes the reredos, three stained glass windows, the Holy House altar and two sets of vestments.
As the church expanded, so too did the number of small side chapels, each dedicated to a saint. The 15 chapels are also named after the mysteries of the Rosary.
At the heart of the Shrine Church is the Holy House containing the image of Our Lady of Walsingham. The Holy House was rebuilt in brick in 1931, copying the dimensions of the original wooden house built by Lady Richeldis. It is effectively a shrine chapel within the much larger church.
On entering the Shrine Church from the Fountain Courtyard, the first thing visitors see is a memorial tomb to Father Patten beside the steps leading down to the well – although he was buried in the churchyard at Saint Mary and All Saints Church, Walsingham.
A similar monument commemorates Bishop Mowbray Stephen O’Rorke (1869-1953), second Bishop of Accra (1911-1924), later a Guardian of the Shrine at Our Lady of Walsingham.
A similar monument commemorates Father Arthur Tooth (1839 -1931), a priest who was prosecuted in 1876 for using proscribed liturgical practices at Saint James’s Church, Hatcham, and who was briefly imprisoned in 1877.
When the foundations of the church were being dug in 1930s, the workers discovered an ancient well. Once cleared of debris, it provided a seemingly never-ending supply of pure fresh water. The well was rebuilt and incorporated into the Shrine Church and the healing service of sprinkling added to Shrine’s liturgy.
Facing the west doors, the Chapel of Saint Gabriel includes the Altar of the Annunciation. Above the altar is a copy of the Della Robbia terracotta panel showing the Angel Gabriel greeting the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation.
Walsingham was a restricted zone throughout World War II and closed to visitors. In May 1945, US forces based nearby organised the first Mass in the priory grounds since the Reformation. Three sisters of the Society of Saint Margaret moved to Walsingham in 1947 to assist at the shrine. The Priory of Our Lady, Walsingham was founded in 1955.
Father Patten combined the posts of Vicar of Walsingham and priest administrator of the Anglican shrine until he died in 1958. The Revd John Colin Stephenson then became administrator of the shrine, but declined to take on the role of vicar.
The pilgrimage to Walsingham has been known as the National Pilgrimage since 1959. It moved from the Whit Monday bank holiday to the Spring bank holiday in 1971.
The gardens have been developed into a full-scale devotional landscape, with a miniature Golgotha and stations of the cross, culminating in a Hill of Calvary with three great crosses. Station 14 includes a model of the tomb at the Holy Sepulchre, with a with a figure of the body of Christ.
The Shrine Church and Holy House are open each day from dawn until dusk, the Shrine Gardens and the Guild of All Souls Chapel are open from 9 am to 7 pm.
