The churches and chapels of Walsingham: 9, the ruins of the Franciscan Friary

The Franciscan Friary at the entrance to Little Walsingham was founded in 1347 by Elizabeth de Burgh, Countess of Clare (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Pilgrims have been visiting Little Walsingham in Norfolk since the 11th century to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Richeldis de Faverches had a series of visions in 1061, in which the Virgin Mary asked her to build a replica of the house in Nazareth where the Angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation that she could conceive the Christ Child.

The ‘holy house’ built by Richelda de Faverches at Walsingham became one of the four principal destinations for pilgrims throughout Europe, after only Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago da Compostella. The popularity of Walsingham was boosted because it was impossible at the time for Christians to visit Nazareth, which was then in the hands of Muslim rulers.

An Augustinian priory was built beside the holy house In 1153, and is known today as Walsingham Abbey. Visitors still flock to the priory, but few pilgrims realise that there is another mediaeval monastic site just a few minutes away.

The spectacular ruins of the 14th century Franciscan friary are a short walk south from the abbey grounds, at the entrance to Little Walsingham. Walsingham Franciscan Friary or Greyfriars was founded by Elizabeth de Burgh (1295-1360), Countess of Clare, in 1347.

Elizabeth de Burgh was a wealthy aristocrat with royal connections, a granddaughter of Edward I, and a powerful magnate who managed vast estates in England, Wales, and Ireland. She was widowed three times by age of 26, and spent her final 38 years as an independent administrator, philanthropist, and patron, most notably founding Clare College, Cambridge, where I stayed in 2016.

In 1308, she married her first husband, John de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, who died 1313. She married her second husband, Theobald de Verdun, former Justiciar of Ireland, in 1316, but he died later that year. In 1317, she married her third husband Roger Damory, who died in 1322.

The Augustinian canons of Walsingham Priory objected to the new friary she founded. They fears the Franciscans would divert the pilgrims and so diminish the Priory’s income from Mass stipends, burial fees and pilgrim gifts. In addition, the Augustinians knew the Franciscans had special privileges, including the right to preach outside their friary and to hear confessions.

Their fears were probably well founded, for the site Elizabeth selected for her friary was at the entrance to Walsingham, and would become the first holy site reached by pilgrims making their way from the Slipper Chapel to Walsingham, on the last mile of the pilgrim route.

The Augustinian canons petitioned the countess, King Edward III, Queen Phillipa of Hainault, and even the Pope, asking them to refuse permission for the new friary. They were refused on all sides, and the friary was approved on 1 February 1347. Elizabeth de Burgh received a license to establish a friary with 12 friars under a warden, and over four acres of land. This was later extended by another three acres and still later to just over 13 acres.

The friary ruins in Walsingham form the most complete remains of a Franciscan house in Britain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Franciscan friary was built to the south-west of the priory grounds, with its main entrance on the south-west corner of the market place.

Elizabeth died in Hertfordshire on 4 November 1360, and the rivalry between the two religious houses continues in the centuries that followed. When the Augustinians of the priory held a market outside the priory gates in Common Place, King Edward III granted the Franciscan friars the right to hold their own market on Fridays , with each trying to outdo the other to attract merchants to buy from their stalls.

The friary continued for almost another 200 years, until it was suppressed in 1538 during his Dissolution of the Monastic Houses. The buildings were torn down and the contents sold. There is a record that the Guild of the Annunciation of Blessed Mary at Walsingham bought the Great Bell of the friary church, and it is possible that the bell was recast as the large bell now hanging in Saint Mary and All Saints Church, the Church of England parish church in Little Walsingham.

Friars’ Quire was built in 1890 as the Methodist Sunday School Room (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The memory of the friars’ market continues in the name of the Friday Market in the centre of the village. The Methodist chapel in Little Walsingham was built on part of the original friary site in 1793-1794. That connection continues in the name of Friars’ Quire, originally built in 1890 as the Methodist Sunday School Room but is now a private house.

The friary site was excavated in the 1930s and the ruins stabilised. It is estimated that the friary church was 198 ft in length. Finds included mediaeval pottery sherds, carved stone mouldings, mediaeval tiles, and fragments of painted glass. In addition, a large number of 17th and 18th century clay pipes were discovered.

The friary church is almost gone save for a section of the chancel wall, but the friary’s domestic buildings and guest house still stand to almost full height. Together they form the most complete remains of a Franciscan house in Britain.

Only a small part of the chancel wall survives from the friary church, but the finest domestic ruins in Norfolk remain, including the chapter house, the friars’ cloister, the preaching cloister, the kitchen, and a large guest house that provided accommodation for poor and sick pilgrims.

An excavation of the guest hall shows it began as a ground floor hall with two hearths, and later an upper floor was inserted, reached by a grand staircase from the cloister. One of the windows of the original ground floor hall was then used as a cart entrance.

An early Victorian house was built against the south end of the friary guesthouse in 1840. The boundary wall facing Fakenham Road incorporates blocked gateways built of re-used stone and brick.

The Friary stands on the Walsingham Estate but generally it is not open to the public. However, the ruins can easily be viewed through a gate on Fakenham Road, just south of Church Street.

The Friary ruins on the Walsingham Estate are not open to the public (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Daily prayer in Lent 2026: 34, Monday 23 March 2026

Christ with the Woman taken in Adultery (Guercino, 1621, Dulwich Picture Gallery)

Patrick Comerford

We are now in the last two weeks of Lent, and this week began with the Fifth Sunday in Lent (Lent V, 22 March 2026), sometimes still known as Passion Sunday.

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.

A modern icon of Aghia Magdalini or Saint Mary Magdalene by Alexandra Kaouki in her workshop in Rethymnon … Mary Magdalene has been identified wrongly for centuries with the woman in John 8 (Photograph © Alexandra Kaouki)

John 8: 1-11 (NRSVA):

(7: 53 Then each of them went home,) 8: 1 while Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ 11 She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’

‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’ (John 8: 7, AV) … stones and rocks on the beach at Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

As we read this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist (John 8: 1-11), two points are worth keeping in mind.

Firstly, as we approach Holy Week and Easter, it is worth remembering how Saint Mary Magdalene, who is an intimate witness to some of the most important events in the life of Christ, including his Crucifixion, burial and Resurrection, has been wrongly identified in tradition with the unnamed woman in this passage.

Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name 12 times in the canonical gospels, more than most of the apostles. In all four gospels, she is a witness to the crucifixion, in the three Synoptic Gospels she is also present at his burial, and all four gospels identify her, either alone or as a member of a larger group of women, as the first witness to the empty tomb, and the first person to testify to the Resurrection. She is often referred to as the ‘apostle to the apostles’.

Secondly, it should be noted, the earliest manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not include John 7: 53 to John 8: 11 in the Fourth Gospel. Many early manuscripts omit this story, and there is some confusion about where it belongs.

This periscope is not found in its canonical place in any of the earliest surviving Greek Gospel manuscripts. It is not found in the two third century papyrus witnesses to John, P66 and P75. Nor is it found in the fourth century Codex Sinaiticus or the Codex Vaticanus. However, all four manuscripts appear to acknowledge the existence of the passage through the use diacritical marks at the spot.

The first surviving Greek manuscript to contain the pericope is the Codex Bezae, in Latin Greek, dating from the late fourth or early fifth century.

Many scholars continue to defend the Johannine authorship of these verses. However, while almost all modern translations now include the pericope adultera at John 7: 53 to 8: 11, some place it in brackets, and some add a note about the oldest and most reliable witnesses.

Yet, this passage contains two of the best known sayings of Jesus: ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her’ (AV, verse 7b) and ‘Go and sin no more’ (AV, verse 11). In the NRSV and NIV there are less memorable versions: ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,’ and ‘Go your way, and from now on do not sin again’ (NRSV) or ‘Let anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,’ and ‘Go now and leave your life of sin’ (NIV).

The literary influences of this passage reflect how well-loved and well-known it is. Where would we be if we without being able to draw a line in the sand? Who would I accuse if I had permission to throw the first stone? How reckless might each of us be without the admonition to sin no more? Or how guilty might we feel, constantly, without the assurance that we are no longer condemned?

The disciples had gone up on their own for the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths) in Jerusalem, as we read last Friday (20 March 2026, see John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30), and there they were joined unexpectedly by Jesus half-way through the Feast. Now they have gone home without him, leaving Jesus alone, and on his own he goes to the Mount of Olives.

He returns to Jerusalem, and begins teaching in the Temple courts once again. There a trap is set for him by an unholy alliance of Scribes and Pharisees in the form of an apparently honest request for help in pursuing justice. However, we can see in verse 6 that the Scribes and the Pharisees are not interested in justice – their only interest is in trapping Jesus.

Adultery was regarded as a capital crime (see Leviticus 20: 10). This seems horrifying to our minds today, but remember how the Mosaic Law was tough on crimes against people, relationships, and the family unit, while other contemporary law codes were tough instead on crime against property. This difference in emphasis – people or things – indicates different value systems and priorities.

Now Jesus is caught in a dilemma: if he agrees with the Mosaic Law and calls for the execution of this woman, he could be accused of sedition, for the Romans had taken away the Jews’ right of capital punishment.

On the other hand, if he says she should not be stoned, he faces an accusations of false teaching and could be discredited among the people, who would also prefer harsh punishment for proven criminals.

When Jesus bends down and starts to write in the sand, he might be seen as stalling for time. Yet, he has not been caught off guard in the past.

However, Jewish civil law had very strict conditions under which adultery was punishable by execution. It required that those accused of adultery should be caught in the act (Numbers 5: 13). Rabbi Samuel says: ‘In the case of adulterers, they [the witnesses] must have seen them in the posture of adulterers.’ Another Talmudic scholar says: ‘[It is not just an issue] of their having seen the couple in a “compromising situation,” for example, coming from a room in which they were alone, or even lying together on the same bed. The actual physical movements of the couple must have been capable of no other explanation, and the witnesses must have seen exactly the same acts at exactly the same time, in the presence of each other, so that their depositions would be identical in every respect.’

But the law also demanded that both parties should be brought forward and prosecuted (Deuteronomy 22: 22). Well, I imagine, it does take two to commit adultery.

If the woman has been caught in adultery, then where is the man? The whole story could have been fabricated. Perhaps the woman has been set up so she can be used to discredit Jesus. Did one of them solicit her, and then others burst in on a pre-arranged signal, let the man go and drag the unfortunate woman before Jesus?

If so, then they too are accessories to the crime and guilty of adultery themselves.

What did Jesus write in the sand?

According to several later manuscripts, verse 8 includes the words: ‘he wrote the sins of each of them’ (see Jeremiah 17: 13). But most readings leave us not knowing. Yet, whatever he wrote did not set them back in their intentions, for they kept on questioning him.

So, despite the popular dramatised portrayal of this story, what Jesus said to them is more important than what he wrote on the ground (see verse 7b): Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.

As the men slowly slip away, the woman is left looking at Jesus, and the crowd is still looking on. She has been publicly humiliated, she has been in danger of losing her life, and now her accusers have faded away while she is left embarrassingly in front of Jesus and in front of everyone else.

The response of Jesus to her is very different to the response she must have expected. She does not deny her sinfulness. She simply admits there is no-on there to condemn her. And neither does Jesus condemn her.

He does not say she has not sinned. He accepts her. He loves her. He simply requests that she should sin no more. She makes no apology, and he expects none. This is not about apologies. This is about divine forgiveness, and she receives it and receives the gift of life.

In a real sense, this woman is each and every one of us. We too receive the unrestrained mercy of Christ.

The woman has sinned, she makes no effort to deny or conceal this, and she stands humbly before Christ. Subsequently he extends to her the divine forgiveness that we are all in need of in our lives.

When we read Gospel stories, we often like to think we would behave like Jesus. We ask the WWJD question: ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ But when I read this story, I often find myself identifying both with the woman and with the people. So often I can feel I am being unfairly accused and unfairly judged by others … but if they really knew what was in my heart at times, what would they think of me? And so often I can rush to judgment about others without realising and accepting my own weaknesses, my innate faults, my own sinfulness.

It is right that we are not too quick to judge and it is certainly right that we do not put God to the test as the Pharisees tried to do to Jesus. But neither is it a matter of condoning wrongful behaviour, or turning a blind eye to sin – especially in our own lives. It is a matter of recognising our sinfulness and placing our humble trust in Christ before whom we must all be judged.

This woman places herself fully and completely at the mercy of God. The NRSV translation ‘Sir’ in verse 11 may appear like a polite Americanism. But it misses the potential that is in the original Greek of seeing her making a confession in Jesus as ‘Lord’ when she says: Οὐδείς, κύριε.

Let us then hide nothing from him but turn towards him with all our hearts for forgiveness and by our example encourage others to do the same.

How do I respond when other people come to me with gossip and stories about the sins or lifestyle of others, or even about me?

Are there some people who find forgiveness difficult to receive in the Church?

In many modern translations, this passage appears to say nothing about the woman’s faith. Do you think there is a necessary connection between faith and the assurance of God’s forgiveness?

What does Jesus write in the sand? … a heart in the sand in Bray, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Monday 23 March 2026):

The theme this week (22-28 March 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Myanmar Earthquake: One Year On’ (pp 40-41). This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update by the Revd Davidson Solanki, the USPG Senior Regional Manager for Asia and the Middle East.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 23 March 2026) invites us to pray:

We give thanks for the resilience of the people of Myanmar who survived last year’s earthquake and ongoing conflict. May they continue to experience God’s comfort and strength as their communities rebuild.

The Collect:

Most merciful God,
who by the death and resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ
delivered and saved the world:
grant that by faith in him who suffered on the cross
we may triumph in the power of his victory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us
that what we do for the least of our brothers and sisters
we do also for you:
give us the will to be the servant of others
as you were the servant of all,
and gave up your life and died for us,
but are alive and reign, now and for ever.

Additional Collect:

Gracious Father,
you gave up your Son
out of love for the world:
lead us to ponder the mysteries of his passion,
that we may know eternal peace
through the shedding of our Saviour’s blood,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint Mary Magdalene at Easter … a sculpture by Mary Grant at the west door of Lichfield Cathedral (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