Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham

The Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham is a Church of England shrine church, built in 1938 in Walsingham, Norfolk, England. It was established as part of the revival of pilgrimage devotion led by Father Alfred Hope Patten in the 1920s. Walsingham is the site of the reputed Marian vision experienced by Lady Richeldis de Faverches, traditionally dated to 1061, though these accounts are regarded as legend rather than historically verified. Lady Richeldis' reputed Marian vision of the Virgin Mary is among the earliest recorded in England and was central to the establishment of Walsingham as a pilgrimage site. The Virgin Mary is venerated at the shrine as Our Lady of Walsingham, and the original site of the 'Holy House' at Walsingham Priory became one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in medieval England. The original Holy House contained a revered wooden image of Our Lady, further emphasising its role as a centre of Marian devotion and pilgrimage, until it was seized and destroyed during the English Reformation. In 1538, under Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, Walsingham Priory was suppressed, and the statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was reportedly taken to London and burned, bringing an end to its status as a pilgrimage site for centuries—until its revival in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Lady Richeldis de Faverches was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman and widow, traditionally credited with establishing the original shrine to the Virgin Mary in Walsingham. According to historical tradition, she experienced a series of Marian visions in which the Blessed Virgin Mary revealed the house in Nazareth where the Holy Family had lived and the Annunciation took place. In a vision vouchsafed to Lady Richeldis, she was commissioned to construct a replica of this sacred dwelling in her village of Walsingham, England, which was dedicated to the sacred mystery of the Annunciation. Before leaving to join the Second Crusade, her son and heir, Lord Geoffrey de Faverches, left the Holy House and its grounds to his chaplain, Edwy, to establish a religious house at Walsingham, which later became Walsingham Priory, to care for the shrine of Our Lady of

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