The story of Walsingham begins in 1061, when the Virgin Mary appeared to an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman called Richeldis or Rychold. Our Lady instructed Richeldis to build a replica of the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth as a memorial to the Annunciation. The Pynson Ballad of 1485 describes the apparition:
Our Lady led Richeldis in spirit to Nazareth and showed her the house where the angel had greeted her. ‘Look, daughter’ said Our Lady. ‘Take the measurements of this house and erect another one like it in Walsingham, dedicated to praising and honouring me. All who come there shall find help in their need.
‘It shall be a perpetual memorial to the great joy of the Annunciation, ground and origin of all my joys and the root of humanity’s gracious Redemption. This came about through Gabriel’s message that I would be a mother through my humility, and conceive God’s Son in virginity.
The shrine pre-dates the translation of the Holy House of Nazareth to Loretto in around the fourteenth century. During the Middle Ages ‘England’s Nazareth’ was one of Christendom’s major centre of pilgrimage, alongside Rome and Santiago de Compostella.
The shrine was dissolved at the Reformation in 1538 and the famous statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was taken to London and burnt. Nothing remains today of the original shrine, but its site is marked on the lawn in “The Abbey Grounds” in the village.
In 1896 Charlotte Pearson Boyd purchased the 14th century Slipper Chapel, the last of the wayside chapels enroute to Walsingham, and restored it for Catholic use. The following year saw the first post-Reformation public pilgrimage to Walsingham and in 1934 Cardinal Bourne led 10,000 pilgrims to the Slipper Chapel, which was declared the National Shrine of Our Lady for England. Pope Francis made the shrine a Minor Basilica in 2015.