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. Walsingham is the site of the reputed Marian apparitions to Richeldis de Faverches in 1061. The Virgin Mary is therefore venerated at the site with the title of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Richeldis de Faverches was an English noblewoman who is credited with establishing the original shrine to Our Lady at Walsingham. 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, Edwin, to establish a religious house to care for the chapel of Our Lady of Walsingham. The Priory passed into the care of Augustinian Canons somewhere between 1146 and 1174. As travelling abroad became more difficult during the time of the Crusades, Walsingham became a place of pilgrimage, ranking alongside Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago da Compostella. The shrine was visited by Erasmus around 1512, by which time the shrine was reputed to have been built by angels in the late eleventh century as a replica of the Virgin's house in Nazareth, and he satirised the devotion of pilgrims at the site in the 1526 edition of his Colloquies. The shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1538. The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was burnt at Chelsea.

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