Walsingham still the nation's favourite place of pilgrimage

BY CHRISTINA FARRELL
The Marian shrine of Walsingham has been voted the nation's number one spiritual place in a national poll.
Listeners to Radio 4's Sunday programme were asked to nominate sites which they found spiritually uplifting or where they felt at one with God or with nature.
Nominations ranged from the Avebury Stone Circles in Wiltshire to Euston Station in London. Walsingham, in Norfolk, narrowly beat Iona to take the top slot.
BBC producer Amanda Hancox said: "Walsingham is a national shrine, which has been a place of pilgrimage since medieval times. When people visit the Shrine, they know that prayers have been said there for hundreds of years?'
Walsingham, known as England's Nazareth, was founded in 1061 after a Saxon woman, Richeldis de Faverches, had a vision of the house when Our Lady was visited by the Angel Gabriel. Our Lady asked Richeldis to build a replica of the house in the village.
Fr Noel Wynn, director of the Catholic shrine, said he was "very pleased but not surprised" that the shrine should top the poll as the nation's favourite.
"Walsingham is a very peaceful, quiet place in itself but because of its tradition as a place of pilgrimage it also has a certain atmosphere," he said. "A lady told me last week that as soon as she got off her coach she 'felt the holiness of the place'."
He said the shrine was becoming increasingly important for young people. "A big Youth 2000 event is taking place here at the end of the month. At any one time we will have 100 Catholic pilgrims in residence and there are also the big day pilgrimages which vary between 500 to 3,000."
This month altar servers held their first national pilgrimage to Walsingham since 1998 to mark the centenary of the restoration of the shrine.
The Catholic shrine is centred on the Slipper Chapel — the last of the pilgrim chapels on the ancient pilgrimage route into the shrine in the centre of the village. The original was totally destroyed in 1539 and the statue of Our
Lady burned at Chelsea.
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