`Isle' of Norfolk is proudly independent

THESE lines are being written from the northern coast of Norfolk.
Earlier in the year I wrote from the most western point in Cornwall, thus perched in peninsular splendour among a twilight land with its own independent, originally Celtic, spirit. Here too one senses the independence of an island race.
For Norfolk, in some respects, is itself an island. It used to be said that it was cut off to the north and east by the sea, and to the south and west by the London and North Eastern Railway.
Historically, too, Norfolk has always been independent. Perhaps the suspicion of "foreigners" has its roots in the days of the Danish invasions. Many newcomers remained for centuries without penetrating further into the "interior" and in mediaeval days Norfolk was England's most populated county.
Those mediaeval hardies prayed a lot judging by the proliferation of places of worship, many of them mediaeval. They positively pepper the rich marshland in the county's north-east with their large 14th or 15th century towers.
Norfolk, moreover, was one of the first parts of Britain to hear the gospel. Before tea with friends in North Elmham, I picked my way through the ruins of the once great Saxon cathedral which dominated this, the original, Saxon diocese of the North Folk.
Only after the Danish invasions was the diocese transferred to Thetford and then, in 1093, to Norwich.
Old friend
THE present Bishop of East Anglia is Bishop Alan Clark, an old friend. I would have liked to call on him, but he is away at the moment. Bishop Clark became the first Ordinary of this, a newly created, See in 1976. He was previously Auxiliary of Northampton with special duties for most of the area now under his episcopal care.
It has long been the custom for Auxiliaries in England, not being
"Suffragans," to receive on episcopal ordination a titular bishopric usually based on some remote city in partibus infidelium, ie, in heathen lands.
Elmham, however, seemed the most obvious titular Bishopric to be assumed when Mgr Clark became Auxiliary of Northampton in 1969. Since 1976 he has been a popular and highly successful Bishop of East Anglia, having had to follow in illustrious footsteps: those of one of East Anglia's patron saints, Felix, who brought the faith here from Burgundy in the seventh century.
Buried City
Felix's apostolate was based on Dunwich, a city eventually buried under the sea. But the permanence of his work iS symbolised by a stone from the last church to stand in the former Dunwich, and now built into the tower of the Catholic church at Southwold, facing, as it does, the buried city of St Felix.
A century or so later came East Anglia's other patron, the 15year-old King Edmund, to liberate and continue to Christianise his people. He suffered cruelly during the worst of the Danish invasions, and was eventually put to an agonising death.
His life and death were not in vain. Four centuries later the Barons of Runnymede swore an oath over St Edmund's tomb to liberate Englishmen from despotic monarchy before going on to induce King John to sign the Great Charter.
Anglican shrine
Last year Bishop Clark welcomed the Apostolic ProNuncio to Walsingham to honour the spot near the Abbey ruins within the present estate of the (Quaker) Gurney family, of the "Holy House" (of the Holy Family at Nazareth). It was built in 1061 by a Saxon Lady of the Manor, Richeldis, at the behest, it is related, to Our Lady herself.
So began the long history of Walsingham as a place of pilgrimage. Today, just beyond the walls of this ruined Abbey ground, stand the church and domain of the extensive and impressive Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, inaugurated sixty years ago by the (Anglican) Fr Hope Patten, again, it is said, at the behest of Our Lady.
Here he built a replica of the "Nazareth House" around which has thrown a large complex of buildings dominated by an ornate church. Its fifteen side altars represent the mysteries of the rosary.
I was present at the Anglican Mass along with more than 100 Bishops attending the Lambeth Conference who had journeyed from Canterbury for the day. I mentioned the event last week but had no opportunity then to do justice to the significance and great pageantry of the occasion.
Rent-a-mob
The Bishops, being very Catholicminded, were evidently impressed by the Marian atmosphere of this magnificent shrine, but were unfortunately bewildered by the boorish and insulting diatribes of the Rent-aMob (as they are locally called), ultra-Protestant demonstrators railing against Anglican devotion to the "blasphemous Roman Mass".
Most of the demonstrators were Welsh or Northern Irish but one came from Genoa. When I asked him why he couldn't laugh at himself he nearly exploded with rage.
There is also, of course, a famous Catholic shrine nearby, centred on the Slipper Chapel just over a mile away in the village of Houghton St Giles. It was here that mediaeval pilgrims took off their shoes before walking the last "holy mile" barefoot to the main shrine. Every English monarch since Norman times made this pilgrimage until Henry VIII (during whose turbulent reign the shrine was suppressed) became the last to do so.
Prayer station
The Slipper Chapel was restored to Catholic use when a local landowner, Charlotte Boyd, became a Catholic and purchased the Site for the Church. The Slipper Chapel became the Catholic National Shrine to Our Lady of Walsingham in 1934, three years after the Anglican restoration of the principal site of the original shrine.
Unfortunately those were distinctly non-ecumenical days and there was no love lost between two "rival" shrines. There had even been painful litigation after Miss Boyd was rumoured to have reverted to Anglicanism on her deathbed, producing an attempt to establish an Anglican claim to the Slipper Chapel.
Today, however, ecumenism is triumphant and the visiting Anglican bishops brought their memorable day to a close by praying and singing in the large, recently constructed, Catholic church near the Slipper Chapel. They were there welcomed by the Catholic Director of Walsingham, the eloquent and personable Fr Peter Allen, SM.
Ecumenism at Walsingham does not stop at AnglicanCatholic friendliness. There is marked fellowship, also, with the large local Methodist community and with the flock which frequents what must surely be England's most unusual Russian Orthodox Church (below left).
It was once a railway station and its present holy-of-holies was, until 22 years ago, the ticket office.
An army camped
The excitement at Walsingham did not end with the departure of the Anglican bishops.
During the week that followed, the Charismatics descended in great numbers on the area around the Slipper Chapel for a five-day "New Dawn" Conference. The Lord was praised to the accompaniment of lusty singing at Mass, an impressive healing service and many other gatherings alongside joyful reunions and new friendships among the thousands who attended, young and old, many of whom slept in the tents provided.
The latter, along with the large marquees specially erected, dotted the picturesque countryside around the Slipper Chapel, as if an army on the move had temporarily pitched camp. In a sense this was exactly what had happened.
One of the principle organisers was Peter Viner who has spent months at Walsingham, on and off, with other hard workers, to make this (I believe unprecedently big) occasion an outstanding success. One of the many other helpers, and a
participant in the "music ministry", was the Catholic Herald's own Jacqui Houlihan.
I would like to go on, but time presses and so, no doubt, will space. Perhaps there will be an opportunity on my return to London next week, having explored more of East Anglia, to say something further.