Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 47, Thursday 21 May 2026

The Empress Helena depicted in a fresco in the Church of Saint Constantine and Saint Helen in Rethymnon, Crete … she is commemorated on 21 May (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season, beginning on Easter Day (5 April 2026) and continuing through Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday next Sunday (24 June 2026). This week began with the Seventh Sunday of Easter (Easter VII, 17 May 2026), and today the Church calendar remembers Saint Helena (330), Protector of the Holy Places.

A local tradition in Essex claims Saint Helena was from Colchester. Her son Constantine, who is associated with York, became Emperor in the year 306 and raised her to the position of Empress. Helena visited the Holy Land as a pilgrim in the year 326. There, it is said, she found Christ’s cross. She is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on this day with her son Constantine, so today is the name day for everyone named Eleni, Dina, Kostas or Konstantinos.

Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may … see my glory’ (John 17: 24) … the south transept window by CE Kempe in Lichfield Cathedral depicts Christ in Glory (Photograph: Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 17: 20-26 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 20 ‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24 Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

25 ‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

‘Christ in Glory’ … Graham Sutherland’s powerful tapestry in Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

As I was saying in my reflections on Sunday (17 May 2026), we are, in some ways, caught in the church calendar in an in-between time, between Ascension Day last Thursday [14 May 2026], and the Day of Pentecost on Sunday next [24 May 2026].

The Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (John 17: 20-26) follows Christ’s ‘Farewell Discourse’ at the Last Supper (John 14: 1 to 16: 33), and Christ has just ended his instructions to his disciples, which conclude with the advice, ‘In the world you face persecution But take courage; I have conquered the world!’ (John 16: 33).

We are now coming to the end of his prayer to the Father (John 17: 1-26), in which he summarises the significance of his life as the time for his glory – his Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension – has arrived.

This prayer is often referred to as the High Priestly Prayer, as it includes many of the elements of prayer a priest offers when a sacrifice is about to be made: glorification (verses 3-5, 25), remembrance of God’s work (verses 2, 6-8, 22, 23), intercession on behalf of others (verses 9, 11, 15, 20, 21, 24), and a declaration of the offering itself (verses 1, 5).

In the Orthodox Church, this passage is also read on the Seventh Sunday of Easter (1 June 2025), a day remembering the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in the year 325. We were celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of that council last year and its formulation of the Nicene Creed. That council condemned the heresy of Arianism that taught that the Son of God was created by the Father and that there was a time when the Son of God did not exist. Christ’s words here bear witness to his divinity and to his filial relationship with the Father.

In his time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ looks up to heaven and prays to the Father, asking him ‘that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe.’ (verse 21).

In this reading, Christ prays for the Church of all times. He looks beyond those who follow him now, to those who will come to believe through their witness. May the Church be rooted in the oneness he shares with the Father (verse 21), which is a relationship of mutual love (verse 23).

He prays that his followers may attain the ultimate goal: to share in Christ’s glory, which is founded in love that has been there before time began (verse 24).

His followers know that Christ has been sent by the Father (verse 25). Now he prays that as we are sent out into the world that ‘the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

Meanwhile, our reading tomorrow returns to the post-Resurrection appearances.

Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

‘I ask … that they may all be one’ (John 17: 20-21) … the former Bea House on Pembroke Park, Dublin, the home of the Irish School of Ecumenics in my student days in the 1980s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 21 May 2026):

The theme this week (17-23 May 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) has been ‘Breaking Barriers: Gender Justice in Malawi’ (pp 56-57). This theme was introduced on Sunday with Reflections from Tamara Khismisi, Projects Coordinator, Anglican Church in Malawi.

The USPG prayer diary invites us to pray today (Thursday 21 May 2026):

Lord, we lift up mission hospitals such as St Peter’s, St Luke’s and St Anne’s in Malawi. We pray that doctors, nurses, and staff are provided with the strength, resources, and wisdom to care for mothers, children, and families in rural communities.

The Collect of the Day:

O God the King of Glory,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
Mercifully give us faith to know
that, as he promised,
he abides with us on earth to the end of time;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal Giver of love and power,
your Son Jesus Christ has sent us into all the world
to preach the gospel of his kingdom.
Confirm us in this mission,
and help us to live the good news we proclaim;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Risen, ascended Lord,
as we rejoice at your triumph,
fill your Church on earth with power and compassion,
that all who are estranged by sin
may find forgiveness and know your peace,
to the glory of God the Father.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

The Emperor Constantine and Saint Helena hold the Holy Cross … an icon in Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Searching in Wolverton for a former hayloft on Green Lane that was once a Primitive Methodist chapel

The Primitive Methodist Chapel in Wolverton was housed in a former hayloft on Green Lane that has been converted into apartments in recent years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Wolverton once had two Methodist Churches, a Congregational Church, and Emmanuel Hall, which later developed into Wolverton Evangelical Church. The two Methodist churches in Wolverton were the Methodist Church at the east end of Church Street, which opened n 1870, and West End Primitive Methodist chapel, which opened in 1907.

But before the Primitive Methodist chapel opened in 1907, that branch of Methodism had an earlier makeshift chapel in a former hayloft on Green Lane.

Until recently, I had searched in vain in Wolverton the former scout cabin on Green Lane, originally a hayloft, that was used by the Primitive Methodists until they opened the West End chapel at the corner of Church Street and Anson Road in 1907.

But, then last week, when we were on a family visit to Wolverton, looking for a former family home where one family member had lived many decades ago, I came across the one-time Primitive Methodist premises on the other side of the street.

The founders of the Methodism, the brothers John and Charles Wesley, had some early successes when they were preaching in North Buckinghamshire, and the Wesleyans built a large number of new buildings in the area in the 19th century.

The Methodists in Wolverton at first went to the chapel Stony Stratford, founded in 1844, or met in one another’s homes. But within a few years, a reading room in Wolverton was converted for their use on Sundays and in 1870 a new Methodist church opened at the east end of Church Street.

The Wesleyan Methodist Church in Wolverton was rebuilt in 1892, to designs by the architect Ewan Harper of Birmingham. Ewan and J Alfred Harper also designed the former Methodist Central Hall in Birmingham (1900-1903). The former Methodist Church in the heart of Wolverton once had a large Sunday School and it is one of the four major Grade II listed buildings in Wolverton.

The former church was built in red brick with a three-stage square tower with a belfry, but the planned steeple was never built, although it is possible to imagine how tall it would have been what it might have looked like by careful attention to its hexagonal stone base.

Since it closed, the former Methodist Church on Church Street has suffered decades of neglect. The King’s Centre decided around 2010 or 2011 to buy and restore the building, and to use the building as the King’s Church. But the project is still waiting completion.

The Green Lane facade of the early Primitive Methodist chapel in Wolverton (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Meanwhile, the Primitive Methodist Church had a late start in Wolverton. The Buckingham circuit held services for a time in a photographer’s studio, but the venture soon came to an end. The Revd RW Burnett eventually bought a site on Green Lane and a hay-loft on the land became the venue for the first Primitive Methodist chapel in Wolverton.

Leading supporters of the Primitive Methodists in Wolverton included Joseph Yates of Deanshanger, who was the Buckingham circuit steward, and later the steward of the Wolverton and Stantonbury circuit; Charles T King, the senior circuit steward and a Sunday school teacher and organist in Wolverton; and JH Taylor, the circuit secretary and choirmaster.

The Primitive Methodists in Wolverton continued to worship in their chapel on Green Lane until 1907, when West End Primitive Methodist Chapel, a purpose-built chapel, was built at the corner of Church Street and Anson Road at a cost of £1,700, when the Revd Charles Herbert Spivey (1873-1954) was the superintendent minister (1903-1909). The project was supported generously by Sir William Pickles Hartley (1846-1922), founder of the Hartley’s jam company.

When the Primitive Methodists moved out of Green Lane, their former chapel on Green Lane then became a scout cabin. The upstairs room was known as ‘The Cabin’ and served as the headquarters of the Wolverton scout troop from 1916 until 1939.

It is still possible to imagine how the former Primitive Methodist chapel had once been a hayloft (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists and the United Methodists came together in 1932 to form the Methodist Church of Great Britain. The former Primitive Methodist Church at the corner of Church Street and Anson Road is now West End United Church, a Local Ecumenical Partnership formed in 2005 by the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, using the former Primitive Methodist building.

As for the former hayloft, Primitive Methodist chapel and scout cabin on Green Lane, it has been converted into apartments, and its previous functions are recalled in a commemorative plaque on the gable wall facing Green Lane.

The minister of West End United Church is the Revd Edson Dube, Superintendent Minister in the Milton Keynes Methodist Circuit. Last December, he was given a Lifetime Award for Contributions to Religion at the 2025 Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire Black Excellence Awards.

West End United Church describes itself as ‘a friendly church aiming to serve the local community and encompassing all ages. Sunday services are at 10:30 am, with junior church. The service on the second Sunday of the month is usually Holy Communion.

A commemorative plaque on the gable wall facing Green Lane recalls the former hayloft, Primitive Methodist chapel and scout cabin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The churches and chapels of Walsingham: 12, the Orthodox Chapel of Saint Seraphim

Saint Seraphim’s Pilgrim Chapel is a former railway station in Little Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my recent stay in Walsingham earlier this month, when I was a guest speaker at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage, I visited about a dozen or so churches and chapels in the area Saint Seraphim’s Pilgrim Chapel is a unique heritage site in the North Norfolk pilgrimage village, incorporating a traditional Orthodox chapel in the Byzantium style, a quiet garden, an icon gallery and a railway heritage display. The chapel is almost hidden away from the main pilgrim sites in Walsingham, on Station Road, at the highest point in the village, in the former railway station that closed in 1964.

Walsingham Railway Station was on the Wells and Fakenham Railway, later part of the Great Eastern Railway. It opened on 1 December 1857, more than half a century before the pilgrimages to Walsingham were revived. The station served the villages of Great Walsingham and Little Walsingham, and in time the line to Walsingham became known as the ‘pilgrim line’. But it closed on 5 October 1964, a victim of the Beeching cuts, when 2,000 stations and over 5,000 miles of track were closed.

The story of Saint Seraphim’s began 60 years ago when Father Mark Meyrick (later known as Faither David) and Leon Liddament came to Walsingham on 6 December 1966. They were part of the newly-formed Missionary Brotherhood of Saint Seraphim, influenced by the teachings of Saint Seraphim of Sarov (1754-1833), a Russian saint known for a life of contemplation and kindness.

Father David was born Mark Meyrick (1930-1993), the son of the Anglican Rector of Codford Saint Peter with Codford Saint Mary, Wiltshire. He had an unexpected experience at Saint Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the Russian Cathedral in Paris, at Christmas 1952. He was received into the Orthodox Church in 1963, and was later ordained deacon and priest by Archbishop Nikodem (Nagaieff).

He came to Walsingham in 1966 to take charge of the small Orthodox chapel in the Anglican Shrine Church, at the invitation of Canon Colin Stephenson. But he found the chapel in disrepair and began looking for a better location for a church. They rented the old railway station, moved their few belongings to it in an old taxi, and got to work transforming it into an Orthodox chapel. The fabric was left almost as it was in the railway days, with the addition of an onion dome and cross on the roof.

After Father Mark and the Brotherhood of Saint Seraphim had transformed the station, the small chapel was blessed by Archbishop Nikodem in August 1967 and dedicated to Saint Seraphim of Sarov. After the blessing, the archbishop led the procession down the Anglican shrine, where the Akathist hymn to the Mother of God was sung.

When the former Poet Laureate John Betjeman, who loved Walsingham, saw the transformed station, he wrote, ‘Now is the Orient come to East Anglia!’

The Russian-style dome and cross above the entrance to Saint Seraphim’s Chapel in Little Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Father Mark left the ROCOR in 1978 for the Moscow Patriarchate under Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh because of what he saw as the ROCOR’s increasingly exclusivist and anti-ecumenical stance. He was tonsured as a monk in 1980, becoming Archimandrite David.

Father David tried to live a life of Orthodoxy that was rooted in England. He and his small community held their services mainly in English, and in their hymns and icons they explored the lives of the saints of Britain and Ireland, such as Saint Columba and Saint Alban. Father David died in 1993; Leon Liddament died in 2010.

Saint Seraphim’s has a distinctive collection of icons in the chapel and the icon gallery, including many by Father David and Leon Liddament. Their work was commissioned by churches and individuals all over the world and closer to home. Their work can also be seen in Walsingham in the Catholic Shrine’s Chapel of Reconciliation, the Orthodox Chapel in the Anglican Shrine and the Church of the Holy Transfiguration in Great Walsingham.

They used traditional methods of egg tempera painting and developed their own distinctive styles. They drew their inspiration from both Greek and Russian traditions, and also incorporated Celtic ornamentation.

The iconostasis or icon screen inside Saint Seraphim’s Chapel in Little Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The dome on the roof is a symbol of the flame of prayer from the people. There is a heritage display in the porch, including a brief history of the station.

Inside the chapel, the iconostasis or icon screen shows Christ and the Mother of God on either side of the royal doors, the four Gospel writers are below the icon of the Annunciation, while the Archangel Michael and Archangel Gabriel guard the way into the altar. Saint Seraphim is on the right-hand side and Saint Nicholas on the left, behind the candle holders. The cross on the right-hand wall is reminder to pray for the departed.

Saint Seraphim’s Chapel is open daily to all visitors from 9 am to 5 pm, although it closes at dusk in winter. The chapel holds services twice a year, on the winter and summer feasts of Saint Seraphim, 2 January and 19 July.

Next to the chapel is a small museum dedicated to Orthodox iconography, one of the few icon museums in the UK. It has a large collection of original icons, many painted by the Walsingham iconographers. Tours of the chapel’s icons are available by appointment and includes entry to the icon museum, the quiet garden and railway display.

The Quiet Garden is the old railway workers’ garden and has been converted into a reflective space that offers a calming and reflective space for pilgrims, visitors and the local community. It was opened to the public in June 2015 by Jonathan Meyrick, Bishop of Lynn. Volunteers care for the garden, which is open every day from 9 am to dusk.

A cross and icons inside Saint Seraphim’s Chapel, Little Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Seraphim’s Trust wishes to build on the tradition of Orthodox icon painting of Father David and Leon Liddament. The trust was formed in 2005 and bought the building from the local council in 2008. The trust aims to keep the chapel open daily for visitors and to restore the property, including the railway platform and the garden.

The trust seeks to make Saint Seraphim’s a space for the study and practice of iconography, reflecting the life and work of Saint Seraphim of Sarov through publications, literature and icons. It also aims to make its rich icon, railway and pilgrimage heritage available through exhibitions, displays and activities in the chapel museum and gallery.

During my brief visit to Saint Seraphim’s, I missed Mariamni and Marcus Plested, who have spent a sabbatical at Saint Seraphim’s, running weekend courses and residential workshops.

The University of St Andrews appointed Professor Marcus Plested as the new 1643 Chair of Divinity last month. He is not only the first Orthodox theologian to hold this position, but he is popbaly the first Orthodox scholar appointed to a senior theology post in the university’s 613-year history.

Marcus Plested has played a significant role in Orthodox-Catholic engagement. I got to know him when he was the Vice-Principal of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and lecturing at the Faculty of Divinity in Cambridge on IOCS courses at Sidney Sussex College. He later moved to the US, where he has been Professor of Greek Patristic and Byzantine Theology at Marquette University.

There is also a Greek Orthodox parish in nearby Great Walsingham. The Parish of the Transfiguration is part of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira, with the Divine Liturgy in English at 10:30 on Sundays, served by Father Christopher Knight and Father Patrick Hodson.

The Chapel of the Mother of God of the Lifegiving Spring continues to be housed in the Anglican Shrine in Walsingham and is affiliated to the Diocese of Sourozh in the Moscow Patriarchate. Father Stephen Platt, the priest appointed to the chapel, is the Rector of the Parish of Saint Nicholas in Oxford, where he lives. He travels to Walsingham twice a month to serve the Divine Liturgy in the chapel in the Shrine Church. During the pilgrimage earlier this month, Father Stephen led us once agin singing the Akathist hymn to the Mother of God in the shrine church.

Saint Seraphim’s Trust seeks to build on the tradition of Orthodox icon painting of Father David Meyrick and Leon Liddament (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The churches and chapels of Walsingham: 11, the Catholic Church of the Annunciation

The Catholic Church of the Annunciation in Little Walsingham was designed by Anthony Rossi and was consecrated in 2006 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my recent stay in Walsingham earlier this month, when I was a guest speaker at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage, I visited about a dozen or so churches and chapels in the area, including the Catholic Church of the Annunciation, set back from the Friday Market, almost beside the Black Lion Hotel, a grade II listed hotel, pub and restaurant that partly dates back to the 15th century.

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, and earlier this month I was in the Church of the Annunciation for Catholic Sung Mass celebrated by Bishop Peter Collins of East Anglia, with Monsignor Keith Newton the preacher. There were addresses too by Bishop Peter Collins, who spoke about Anglican Roman Catholic dialogue, and the Revd Norman Wallwork, who spoke about the prayers of Eric Milner-White.

Walsingham was one of the most famous pilgrim shrines in Europe until the Reformation, and the tradition of pilgrimage there was not revived until the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

After Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England in 1851, Walsingham found itself in the parish of King’s Lynn, then in the Diocese of Northampton.

The Roman Catholic presence in the immediate was not established until the 1890s, when Charlotte Pearson Boyd (1837-1906) bought the Slipper Chapel at Houghton St Giles, a mile outside Walsingham, hoping to see it being used for pilgrims and liturgies.

The site of the Church of the Annunciation is deep and narrow, with a considerable rise in ground level from front to back, and the church is set into the slope (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

However, there was virtually no Catholic presence in Walsingham at the time, and the King’s Lynn parish records at the time recorded only one Catholic resident, and she was a resident of the workhouse. This explains why the Catholic shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham remained in the church in King’s Lynn and was not transferred to Walsingham for decades.

When Father Alfred Hope Patten (1885-1958) became Vicar of Little Walsingham in 1921, he was singularly responsible for making Walsingham the centre of pilgrimage it is today and established the Anglican shrine in the 1930s.

The popularity of the shrine and pilgrimages he initiated seem to have provided the impetus for the Diocese of Northampton to rapidly move the Catholic shrine in King’s Lynn to the Slipper Chapel. As a consequence, Little Walsingham became a Catholic parish in its own right, and a church needed to be built in the village itself.

Inside the Church of the Annunciation in Little Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A community of Capuchin friars settled at Walsingham in 1937 and acquired two cottages in Friday Market that were demolished to provide the site for a new church. But when the friars left in 1948 the church was still built.

A temporary church was built by the Diocese of Northampton in the Friday Market in Little Walsingham in 1950. The brick façade and some of the furnishings may have been designed by Enid Chadwick, an artist based in Walsingham whose work is found throughout the Anglican Shrine Church.

The plain design, with a central porch and flanking curved walls, may have been inspired by the Church of Our Lady at Wells-next-the-Sea. That small church was built as a temporary church, and it was intended to be replaced as soon as possible, but it remained in use for more than 50 years.

The priests of the Society of Mary (Marists) took over the care of the national shrine and also the parish of Walsingham in 1968. Meanwhile, the Diocese of East Anglia was formed in 1976, covering the counties of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk and Walsingham became part of the new diocese.

Throughout that time, there were active discussions about building a more permanent parish church. However, the first plans were not drawn up until 1996, under the guidance of Bishop Peter Smith (1943-2020), Bishop of East Anglia and later Archbishop of Cardiff (2001-2010) and Archbishop of Southwark (2010-2019).

The Church of the Annunciation was designed as Britain’s first carbon-neutral church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The new Church of the Annunciation was designed by the Norfolk architect Anthony Rossi (1932-2008), and it is said Bishop Smith insisted that there would be no half-measures, and that only the best would be good enough when it came to materials and design.

Work began in 2005 and the church was consecrated by Bishop Michael Evans in 2006. The site is deep and narrow, with a considerable rise in ground level from front to back, and the new building was set into the slope with a parish room in the roof space.

The church is the first important East Anglian church of the 21st century. It was designed as Britain’s first carbon-neutral church. he heating and electrical installations are designed to use renewable sources and a solar energy unit displays how much electricity is being generated by the panels on the roof, how much is being used, and how much stored.

The Annunciation depicted on the tower of the Church of the Annunciation in Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The open forecourt in front of the church ties the building into a relationship with the Friday Market and the Pilgrim Bureau beside it. The cross is the one survival from the earlier church.

The plan includes a round tower with a nave extending to the west and a sanctuary on the north side of the nave. Behind the tower, the nave is set into the sloping ground and is largely windowless except for the timber-faced end gable, which has three windows with triangular heads.

The south-facing slope of the wide pitched roof has solar panels. The walls of the north side are a mixture of red brick and flint. In the centre of this side is a full-height projection containing the sanctuary, which has canted side walls with a central north window, a four-light window in the east and a deep sloping roof. The walls are a mixture of flint, red brick and timber boarding and the roofs are covered with red pantiles.

The font, with the holy oils displayed behind it in containers of coloured glass (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Wooden doors lead into a narthex. The church is not orientated on the tradition east-west axis, and the sanctuary faces north. The internal layout reflects modern liturgical practice. The interior is wide, open and fan-shaped, focused on the narrow window behind the altar, as if echoing a Norman lancet. The other focus is the font, with the holy oils displayed behind it in containers of coloured glass. Virtually everything is new and all of a piece, and the overall sense is of simplicity and beauty.

The church has a light-coloured floor covering, plain plastered walls and a panelled ceiling with the steel trusses of the roof exposed. The timber bench seating is arranged in a fan shape facing the raised semi-circular platform of the sanctuary. The sanctuary furnishings and font were designed by the architect Anthony Rossi and made by the Norwich stonemason Bruce Riley, using three types of Ancaster stone, which is also used for steps and areas of paving within the church.

The north window behind the altar is by Paul San Casciani, who began his training in 1950 at James Powell Stained Glass Studio (Whitefriars Glass). Set against it is a bronze statue of the dead Christ by the sculptor Mark Coreth. The west and east windows have simple patterns of leads of varying widths with accents of colour and were designed by the architect. Two statues and the Stations of the Cross were brought from the earlier church.

The exposed girders of the roof make it feel lower than it needs to be, and it could have benefitted from a central lantern light. Most of the furnishings were designed by the architect, but some items were brought from the earlier, 1950 church.

The Papal insignia in the forecourt of the Church of the Annunciation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The low flint-faced round tower evokes the form of many mediaeval Norfolk churches. It has a conical roof incorporating a gable pierced with an oculus, with inset brick in a radiating pattern. Around the bottom of the tower is an open loggia or porch, with the letters AMDG (‘To the greater glory of God’) and the date of consecration MMVI (2006) picked out in brick. A sculpture of the Annunciation attached to the tower in 2017 was blessed by Bishop Alan Hopes in 2018.

The gable houses a bell cast by Taylor, Eayre & Smith of Loughborough and donated by the Parish of Sudbury.

The priests of the parish are the Revd Keith Tulloch SM, Parish Priest, the Rev Thomas Goonan SM, and the Rev Desmond Hanrahan SM. Masses are at 10:30 am (Sundays), 9:30 am (Monday to Saturday and Holy Days. The other places of worship in the parish include Saint Peter’s Church, Blakeney, Saint Henry Walpole, Burnham Market, and Our Lady Star of the Sea, Wells-next-the-Sea.

Am icon of Our Lady of Walsingham in the Church of the Annunciation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The churches and chapels of Walsingham: 10, the Methodist Church, the oldest Methodist chapel in use in East Anglia

The Methodist Church in Walsingham is in a hidden corner off Friday Market (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Walsingham was once one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the world and was known as ‘England’s Nazareth’. Since the revival of pilgrimage to Walsingham in the past century or so, the number and variety of churches and chapels in the Norfolk village has grown, and when I was there earlier this month to speak at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage, I visited a dozen or more churches and chapels.

During the first afternoon of this month’s programme, we visited the Methodist Church in Walsingham, where we are being welcomed by Aileen Cox, a lay minister of the Methodist Church. Holy Communion was celebrated there by the Revd Dr Richard Clutterbuck, a former principal of Edgehill Theological College, Belfast, and the preacher was the Revd Dr Mark Rowland, Secretary of the Faith and Order Committee of the Methodist Church.

Catholic pilgrimages to the Slipper Chapel only began after 1897, and Anglican pilgrimages only date from the 1920s with the arrival of Rev Alfred Hope Patten, who started to rebuild the shrine in 1931. So, for over 350 years, Walsingham was what might be descried as a religious backwater without the profile it has today.

In the heartland of English Marianism, where there are places of worship belonging to the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox traditions, it is easy to forget that Methodism was the main Christian tradition in rural Norfolk in the 18th and 19th centuries. At the 1851 census, the majority of Norfolk’s churchgoers were non-conformists, and most of them Methodists.

John Wesley visited Little Walsingham in 1781 and preached in the Common Place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When John Wesley visited Little Walsingham in 1781, a Methodist society had already been formed in the village two years earlier in 1779, and his visit must have seemed a reward for their energy and enthusiasm.

He recorded in his Journal that he preached in the Common Place at 2 pm on Tuesday 30 October 1781 to a crowd of several thousand people. He then went to see the ruins of the Augustinian priory and Franciscan friary: ‘Had there been a grain of virtue or public spirit in Henry VIII, these noble buildings need not have run to ruin.’

A small Methodist chapel was built in the in Walsingham 1782. This later became two cottages when the present church was built in 1793-1784.

Walsingham was transferred from the huge Lynn Circuit in 1791 to a new circuit headed initially by Wells-next-the-Sea. Its name was changed to the Walsingham Circuit the following year.

The Victorian central pulpit dominates the simple table with its unusual brass candlesticks (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

A site off the Friday Market at the south end of the High Street, partly on the site of the Franciscan Friary was bought and the foundation stone of a new chapel was laid on 10 June 1793. It was opened on 8 June 1794 by Charles Boon, an itinerant preacher stationed at Great Yarmouth.

It is built of red brick with a pyramid-shaped tiled roof. Its doorway was flanked by two plain columns set beneath an open triangular pediment. The design is typical of early Methodist preaching houses of the period, a large square red-brick box, with an entrance porch and a pretty gallery running around three sides of the interior.

The Victorian central pulpit dominates the simple table with its unusual brass candlesticks. The pews at ground floor level are of a heavy style favoured by the Victorians.

The organ is perched above the entrance, and the gallery is the original one from the 1790s, and still has its original pews. The organ came from the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Walsingham when it closed in the 1930s after the union of the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist Churches.

The organ came from the Primitive Methodist Chapel when it closed in the 1930s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The exhibits on display include copies of the original religious licences granted by the bishop in order to register a place of religious worship in both Great Walsingham and Little Walsingham.

The chapel became head of the Wesleyan Methodist Walsingham Circuit in due course and a plan in 1847 of the preaching appointments for the chapel and its 33 daughter churches is on display.

Most of these neighbouring villages also had Primitive Methodist Chapels, together with many other Primitive Chapels where there was no Wesleyan presence. Meanwhile, a Primitive Methodist chapel was also built in Walsingham at Swan Entry in 1849.

The Methodist congregation in Walsingham was divided during the ‘Reform dispute,’ a mid-19th century schism that divided Wesleyan Methodism in 1849-1856, driven by demands to democratise church governance and reduce the power of ordained ministers. The congregation in Walsingham was halved in numbers, and the Wesleyan Reformers bought the former Independent of Congregational chapel in Walsingham in 1868.

The Wesleyan chapel was transferred to the East Dereham Circuit in 1887 and so was no longer head of a circuit. Extensive internal renovations took place in 1888. A new schoolroom was built by Charles Tuthill of Fakenham in 1890, and the name Friars’ Quire is a reminder of the link with the site of the Franciscan Friary.

Methodism in Norfolk was so much affected by the loss of members in the Reform dispute that its circuits were dissolved at the beginning of the 20th century and missions created. Walsingham was placed in the Mid-Norfolk Mission in 1906.

An icon of John and Charles Wesley among the exhibits in Walsingham Methodist Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

With the amalgamation Methodist traditions in the 1930s, the Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist congregations in Walsingham combined. The final services in the Primitive Methodist chapel were held on 8 October 1933, the chapel was sold and it became a house.

Today, the Methodist Church in Walsingham is the oldest Methodist chapel in East Anglia still in use for its original purpose. Indeed, if we consider Saint Mary’s and All Saints’ Church was thoroughly rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1962, then Walsingham Methodist Chapel might be said to be by far the oldest unaltered place of worship in Little Walsingham.

Although there is no regular Methodist congregation in Walsingham, it is a heritage chapel that is open to visitors on Fridays from April to October, and it also hosts school visits on a year-round basis in conjunction with Anglican Shrine. Short informal services are held on the second Sunday afternoon each month at 4:30 pm, followed by refreshments.

The Methodist Church in Walsingham, built in 1793-1784, is the oldest Methodist chapel in East Anglia still in use for its original purpose (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The churches and chapels of Walsingham: 8, the Chapel of Reconciliation in the grounds of the Catholic National Shrine

The Chapel of Reconciliation in Houghton St Giles is a large and striking building that looks like a Norfolk barn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When Cyril Wood and I stopped in Houghton St Giles on our way to Walsingham last week to visit the Slipper Chapel, we also visited the modern Chapel of Reconciliation, which is part of the Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady.

We were on our way to Walsingham, where I was speaking at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage at the Anglican Shrine. During the week, I visited a dozen or more churches and chapels in Walsingham, including the Shrine Church and the chapels at the Anglican Shrine, and Saint Mary and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in the small Norfolk village.

The Chapel of Reconciliation is a mile outside Walsingham in Houghton St Giles in Norfolk. Seen from a distance, the high-roofed church appears to be a great barn, with only the car park beside it and the huddled campus of shrine buildings, suggesting that there is something a little out of the ordinary there.

The roof of the chapel comes down to within a few metres of the ground, and we entered the building through narrow doors at the end. Inside, steel and wooden beams lift above the open space, deadening the sound.

Inside the Chapel of Reconciliation, designed by Michael Wingate and Henry Rolph of Purcell Miller Tritton, Norwich, and built in 1980-1982 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Most of the shrine Masses and services take place in the large Chapel of Reconciliation, which was built in 1980-1982. The chapel has a capacity of about 500, and when numbers exceed this it can be opened to the shrine grounds, so that several thousand people can attend Mass together.

The building of the large Chapel of Our Lady of Reconciliation began in September 1980. It replaced an open-sided outdoor chapel built in 1973 to cater for large assemblies of pilgrims. This new chapel is noted for its resemblance to a Norfolk hipped-roofed barn and was blessed by Cardinal Basil Hume on 6 September 1981, and consecrated by Bishop Alan Clark of East Anglia on 22 May 1982.

The site dates back to the mid-14th century when a small wayside chapel, now known as the Slipper Chapel, was built at Houghton Saint Giles for pilgrims on their way to the shrine at Walsingham. The Slipper Chapel was bought in 1896 by Charlotte Boyd, who commissioned the architect Thomas Garner to restore the building. The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, which had been erected at King’s Lynn in 1897, was moved to the Slipper Chapel at Houghton In 1934 and became the National Shrine of Our Lady for Roman Catholics in England. After the World War II, with increasing numbers of pilgrims to the shrine, Mass was often said in the open air, using an open-sided pavilion as a canopy for the sanctuary. In the late 1960s, the Diocese of Northampton began to improve the facilities for pilgrimages on a large-scale.

A range of service buildings was completed in 1972 and work began on a large new open-sided structure on a concrete dais, with a granite altar and a timber roof, providing a more permanent covered outdoor sanctuary Over the next decade, a brief was developed for building a proper chapel over the dais, seating 350 people and with a sanctuary that could be opened out in summertime for large congregations on the meadow in front. The architects were Michael Wingate and Henry Rolph of Purcell Miller Tritton, Norwich. Building work began in September 1980 and the completed building was consecrated by Bishop Alan Clark on 22 May 1982.

The plans for redeveloping the site include replacing the Chapel of Reconciliation with a large mediaeval-style building with a cloister in front.

The sanctuary has fully glazed walls that can be opened out to connect the building with an outside congregation (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The chapel is a large and striking building that looks like a Norfolk barn. It has low side walls of flint with red brick dressings and a steeply pitched roof, hipped with gablets at both ends and covered in red clay pantiles.

On the long east side is a slight projection marking the sanctuary, with fully glazed walls that can be opened out to connect the building with an outside congregation. Otherwise the walls are punctuated by narrow slit windows glazed with hand-blown glass, made locally at Langham and set in lead.

The interior is a single undivided space, with walls of fair-faced brick. The roof structure is carried on steel portals giving a clear span across the space. The rafters and softwood ceiling boards are stained a warm colour.

The floor is covered with carpet tiles, with timber benches made by Rob Corbett, a local cabinet maker, arranged in a fan-shape around the sanctuary.

The altar is made of Aberdeen granite. Alongside it is the tabernacle, made for the chapel at Craig Lockhart College, Edinburgh (1948) and acquired in 1986.

The pipe organ was built by Stephen Schumacher of Belgium. It is supplemented by an electronic organ.

The altar in the Chapel of Reconciliation is made of Aberdeen granite (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pope John Paul II did not visit Walsingham when he visited Britain in 1982. Instead, the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was taken to Wembley Stadium in London, where he insisted that it remain on the altar during Mass.

In the shrine gardens behind the church, a Way of the Cross was formed from the 1948 student crosses and leads to the 14th century Slipper Chapel and the mid-20th century Chapel of the Holy Spirit. Beside them are the cloisters of the 1980s, containing offices, a shop, a café and other facilities.

In the centre of the cloisters is a fountain surmounted by the font from the redundant mediaeval church of Forncett Saint Mary. Today, hundreds of pilgrims use it to fill their bottles with holy water to take back to their parishes and homes.

A side shrine in the Chapel of Reconciliation includes an icon of Our Lady of Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The churches and chapels of Walsingham: 7, the Slipper Chapel and its restoration after 400 years

The Slipper Chapel in Houghton Saint Giles was the last chapel on the pilgrim route to Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my three or four days in Walsingham, where I was speaking at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage last week, I visited a dozen or more churches and chapels in Walsingham, including the Shrine Church and the chapels at the Anglican Shrine, and Saint Mary and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in the small Norfolk village.

On the way, Cyril Wood and I stopped in Houghton Saint Giles, a mile outside Walsingham, to visit the Catholic National Shrine and Basilica of Our Lady at Walsingham. The shrine and its grounds include the Slipper Chapel, built ca 1340, the Grade II listed presbytery built in 1904, the Chapel of the Holy Ghost, and the Chapel of Our Lady of Reconciliation built in 1982.

The Slipper Chapel, originally known as the Chapel of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, was the last chapel on the pilgrim route to the Priory of Our Lady of Walsingham. The entire site was given to the status of a Minor Basilica by Pope Francis in 2015.

The Marian image of Our Lady of Walsingham was moved in 1934 from the Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation in King’s Lynn to the Chapel of Saint Catherine of Alexandria or the Slipper Chapel, which became the Catholic National Shrine and a focal point of Marian devotion that year. Pope Pius XII granted a canonical coronation to the image under the title of Our Lady of Walsingham on 15 August 1954.

Inside the Slipper Chapel, where every king of England, from Henry III in 1226 to Henry VIII in 1511, knelt in prayer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The chapel was built in 1325 and dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the patron of pilgrims. Walsingham – ‘England’s Nazareth’ – was second only to Canterbury in importance as an English pilgrimage site, attracting pilgrims from across England and beyond. Every king of England, from Henry III in 1226 to Henry VIII in 1511, accompanied by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

The Slipper Chapel became the final and most important wayside chapel on the pilgrim route. There pilgrims stopped to go to Mass and confess their sins, then traditionally removed their shoes to walk barefoot and in a penitential spirit the last ‘holy mile’ to the Holt House at Walsingham Priory. And so it became known as the ‘Slipper Chapel. An alternative explanation suggests the name may come from slype, the Old English word for ‘between’, because the chapel stood between everyday life and the main shrine at Walsingham.

During the Tudor Reformation, the priory property was handed over to the King’s Commissioners in 1538, the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was taken to London to be burnt, the Holy House and the original shrine were destroyed, and Walsingham ceased to be a place of pilgrimage. The Slipper Chapel survived but fell into disuse, disrepair and neglect, and over the centuries it was used as a poorhouse, a forge, a cowshed and a barn.

The restoration of the Slipper Chapel is due to the vision and commitment of Charlotte Pearson Boyd (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The restoration of the Slipper Chapel is due to the vision and commitment of Charlotte Pearson Boyd (1837-1906), who had been a devout Anglo-Catholic before she became a Roman Catholic in 1894. She was born in Macao in 1837, the daughter of a wealthy merchant Alexander Pearson Boyd and his wife Charlotte. At the age of six weeks she brought back by her parents to live in Brighton.

She opened an orphanage in Kilburn in 1866, and continued to run it into her old age. She founded the English Abbey Restoration Trust in 1875 ‘to provide funds for the purchase of ancient ecclesiastical buildings which had passed into secular hands, and their restoration for worship according to the rites of the Church of England’.

She made her first pilgrimage to Walsingham in 1893 and was so entranced with the place that she offered to buy everything – from the Slipper Chapel to the shrine ruins. Eventually, she bought the ruined former chapel from the farm owner in 1896.

Charlotte Boyd commissioned the architect Thomas Garner to restore the Slipper Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Charlotte Boyd failed to find support from Bishop Riddell of Northampton, who saw the site more as a mission station. Instead, a modern shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham was established at King’s Lynn in 1897, when Pope Leo XIII gave permission to set up the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in the Lady Chapel of the Church of the Annunciation in King’s Lynn. At the time, it was the parish church for all Roman Catholics in that part of North Norfolk, and from there the first public pilgrimage since the Reformation visited Walsingham on 20 August 1897.

Charlotte Boyd then offered the chapel to the Benedictines of Downside Abbey, where she had become an oblate. She invited the architect Thomas Garner (1839-1906) to undertake the restoration work, which started in 1897 and was largely complete by 1904. He one of the leading English Gothic Revival architects of the Victorian era, and also built the Grade II listed presbytery beside the Slipper Chapel.

Garner had been articled to Sir Gilbert Scott at the age of 17, and one of his immediate predecessors at Scott’s was his future partner George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907). Their works can be seen throughout Oxford, but their partnership was dissolved when Garner became a Roman Catholic in 1898. Garner was also the architect to Downside Abbey, where he designed the choir in which he is buried.

The architect Thomas Garner also designed the presbytery beside the Slipper Chapel (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Downside did not actively promote the chapel, apparently because of opposition from the local bishop. Amid much disappointment and misunderstanding, the Slipper Chapel remained virtually unused for 40 years, and the presbytery designed by Garner was leased to a tenant until 1933, when the Benedictines transferred the site to the diocese.

But over the years, pilgrims and pilgrimages to the Slipper Chapel became more frequent. Meanwhile, in 1922, a new Anglican vicar, Father Alfred Hope Patten, set up a shrine in Saint Mary and All Saints Church in Little Walsingham, and this was eventually transferred to the new Anglican Shrine in 1931.

Prompted by the growth in popularity of the Anglo-Catholic shrine at Walsingham, Cardinal Francis Bourne of Westminster ordered moving the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham from King’s Lynn to the Slipper Chapel.

James and Lilian Dagless designed the altar and reredos for the Slipper Chapel in 1934 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

James and Lilian Dagless made the altar and reredos for the Slipper Chapel in 1934, and after some further minor repairs, Bishop Laurence Youens of Northampton celebrated Mass in the Slipper Chapel on 15 August 1934. It twas he first public Mass in the Slipper Chapel in 400 years. On 19 August, Cardinal Francis Bourne, accompanied by most of the bishops of England and Wales, led a National Pilgrimage of 12,000 people to the shrine, where Cardinal Bourne declared the Slipper Chapel the National Shrine of Our Lady for Roman Catholics in England.

The chapel was consecrated in September 1938, and was made the centre of a new, independent episcopal parish, with Bishop Youens of Northampton as the first rector and the priest-custodian Monsignor Bruno Scott-James as the first administrator.

The Canadian artist Marcel Barbeau designed a new statue for the Slipper Chapel that was made by WF Knight of Wellingborough. The statue was solemnly crowned on 15 August 1954 by Archbishop Gerald O’Hara on behalf of Pope Pius XII.

The East Window (above), designed by Geoffrey Web (1953) depicts the Assumption; the West Window (below), designed by Alfred Fisher (1997) depicts the Annunciation (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The East Window in the Slipper Chapel, designed by Geoffrey Webb, was completed in 1953. Its theme is the Assumption of Our Lady, and the lower panels include the arms of Pope Pius XII, who defined the dogma of the Assumption in 1950, and Bishop Leo Parker, the then Bishop of Northampton.

To commemorate the centenary of the restoration of pilgrimage to Walsingham, Alfred Fisher designed a new West Window illustrating the Annunciation that was installed in 1997.

From 1968 to 2014, the shrine was administered by the Marists Fathers, assisted by the Marist Sisters. Since 2015, the National Shrine of Our Lady has been run under statutes of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, who appoint the shrine rector. A community of Augustinian friars from Nigeria came to assist the Rector, the Revd Dr Robert Billing, in 2024.

Inside the Holy Ghost Chapel, designed by Monsignor Bruno Scott-James and was built in 1938 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Holy Ghost Chapel is a flat-roofed chapel attached to the Slipper Chapel and is reached through a short cloister link. It was designed by Monsignor Bruno Scott-James, the first priest-custodian of the shrine, and was built in 1938.

The chapel has a stone altar with a gilt reredos, a significant collection of relics acquired over the years, including relics of the True Cross, Our Lady’s Veil, the Twelve Apostles and other saints, staues of Erasmus and Thomas More, and a copy of the bearskin said to have been seen by Erasmus in Walsingham.

The chapel also has a copy of the Wilton Diptych (1395), showing Richard II dedicating England as the Dowry of Mary at Westminster Abbey in 1381 and a large mosaic by Anna Wyner (1988) depicting Our Lady and the Apostles at Pentecost.

The Holy Ghost Chapel holds a significant collection of relics acquired over the years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Pope Francis made the shrine a minor basilica on 27 December 2015, and its proper title today is the Basilica of Our Lady, Walsingham.

The then Rector of the Catholic National Shrine and the then Priest Administrator of the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham signed an Ecumenical Covenant in 2018, striving to work together as ‘shared custodians of the Holy Land of Walsingham’ in ‘common witness to the unique vocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary’ and to pray for the unity which is ‘Christ’s will for his Church’.

Today, the grounds around the Slipper Chapel includes the Chapel of Our Lady of Reconciliation, completed in 1982, which accommodates up to 400 people for services and can open towards the pilgrimage area for larger ceremonies. The site also has open-air Stations of the Cross around the grounds, a picnic area, a gift shop, a café and an exhibition area.

• Each year on the Sunday closest to 8 September, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham is carried in a procession from the Slipper Chapel. The chapel welcomes over 250,000 pilgrims and visitors throughout the year, and the main pilgrimage season is from May to the end of September. Although times may vary, there is usually a Pilgrim Mass at 12 noon each day.

Pope Francis designated the shrine a minor basilica on 27 December 2015 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Tomorrow: the Chapel of Our Lady of Reconciliation.

The churches and chapels of Walsingham: 6, the Garden Altar or Altar of the Mysteries of Light

The Garden Altar or ‘The Altar of the Mysteries of Light’ in Walsingham was erected in 2025 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During my visit to Walsingham last week, when I was invited to speak at the Ecumenical Pilgrimage, I visited about a dozen churches and chapels in Walsingham, including two visits to Saint Mary and All Saints’ Church, the Church of England parish church in the small Norfolk village, the Shrine Church, where much of our worship took place during those days, and the Holy House.

The Anglican Shrine in Walsingham has other chapels and altars, including the Chantry Chapel of Saint Michael and the Holy Souls and the Barn Chapel, and the Garden Altar or ‘The Altar of the Mysteries of Light’ which creates an open-air chapel in the gardens.

The Garden Altar or ‘The Altar of the Mysteries of Light’ was erected in 2005 on an upper lawn of the garden to replace the original ‘Halifax Altar’. It replaced the original Halifax Altar and a pavilion designed in 1933 for Lord Halifax for a single Anglo-Catholic Congress High Mass. The Halifax Altar was critically unsafe when a digger came in touch with it at the time of the 2004 garden renovation, it collapsed into a sorry heap and it was demolished.

Charles Lindley Wood (1839-1934), 2nd Viscount Halifax, was a founding Lay Guardian of the shrine in 1931. But he was the only Guardian never to visit Walsingham, and he never signed the Guardians’ Roll. Nevertheless, he was allocated a stall in the Shrine Church, the Saint Edward stall on north side of chancel. A prominent Anglican ecumenist, he was twice President of the English Church Union (1868-1919, 1927-1934).

In 1933, Lord Halifax had an altar pavilion built for a single Anglo-Catholic Congress High Mass at Hickleton, his family seat near Doncaster. It was designed by Sir William Milner, an architect and the chief benefactor of the Shrine. Afterwards Lord Halifax presented the altar to the Shrine as an outside altar.

Milner often pointed out that he had designed the altar for use on the one day only. It had fallen severely into disrepair by 1960 and it was given a major refurbishment that year.

The Garden Altar was designed by the Cambridge architects Cowper Griffith Associates to represent ‘Pilgrimage’ through its tent-like structure (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The altar was so far beyond repair in 2004 that it was replaced by the present Altar of The Mysteries of Light in 2005.

The altar was designed by the Cambridge architects Cowper Griffith Associates, whose work includes Wesley College on Jesus Lane, Cambridge, housing for Winchester College, visitor facilities at Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, and Stowe Gardens in Buckinghamshire.

The Altar of the Mysteries of Light takes its name from five additional Mysteries of the Rosary established by Pope John Paul II: Christ’s Baptism in the Jordan, the Wedding at Cana, the Proclamation of the Kingdom of God, the Transfiguration and the Institution of the Eucharist.

The new altar was designed to represent ‘Pilgrimage’ through its tent-like structure, reminiscent of the biblical tent for the Ark of the Covenant and the fishing boats of the disciples, and this tented shape suggests onward travel. It features a dressed stone podium with in-built evening lighting. Four timber masts support a fabric roof, and it includes a timber screen constructed with boat-building techniques.

The altar’s Latin inscription, Lumen Gentium (‘Light of the Nations’), also recalls the title of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church from the Second Vatican Council.

Today, the altar is the focal point for large open-air worship services and Mass, particularly during the large pilgrimages that can attract up to 10,000 people.

The Garden Altar at night in the gardens of the Anglican Shrine in Walsingham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)