top facts about walsingham
Just four miles from Wells-next-the-Sea, on the banks of the River Stiffkey, is the village of Walsingham, which has a long history of religious pilgrimage and wealth of historic buildings dating back to the 11th century.


In 1226, King Henry III made his first of many pilgrimages to Walsingham; he was a great supporter of The Virgin Mary and the Holy House at Walsingham and he generously gave the Canons his royal patronage. Following his devotion, nearly all the Kings and Queens of England, up to and including King Henry VIII and Queen Katherine of Aragon, came on pilgrimage to the Holy House, until the Dissolution of the Priory in 1538.
By the 14th and 15th centuries Walsingham, along with Canterbury, were the two premier places of pilgrimage in England. Walsingham was slightly the more important of the two, as this was a shrine to Our Lady whereas Canterbury was a shrine to St. Thomas Becket.

Pilgrims came from far and wide including Europe. They travelled by boat, either into King’s Lynn or into smaller ports along the north Norfolk coast such as Wells, Blakeney or Cley. Travellers from the north of England would find it easier and safer to travel by boat down the north east coast, to avoid crossing the notoriously dangerous Fens.
Since the pilgrimage revival of the mid 1930s, pilgrim travel has become much easier. Train travel was used between 1857 until the line closed in 1964 and then cars and coaches were relied upon. Walsingham was a restricted zone during the war years, closed to visitors, but many service men and women showed interest in the shrine. On 17 May 1945, the American Forces organised the first Mass in the Priory grounds since the Reformation.


