Walsingham

Walsingham is a village (actually two conjoined villages: Little Walsingham and Great Walsingham) in the English county of Norfolk. The village is famed for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary and as a major pilgrimage centre. It also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses.

The civil parish, which includes the two Walsinghams, together with the depopulated medieval village of Egmere (grid reference TF 897 374), has an area of 18.98 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 864 in 397 households. For the purposes of local government the parish falls within the district of North Norfolk.

Walsingham became a major centre of pilgrimage in the eleventh century. In 1061, according to the Walsingham legend, a Saxon noblewoman, Richeldis de Faverches, had a vision of the Virgin Mary in which she was instructed to build a replica of the house of the Holy Family in Nazareth in honour of the Annunciation. Her family name does not appear in the Domesday Book.

When it was built the Holy House in Walsingham was panelled with wood and contained a wooden statue of an enthroned Virgin Mary with the child Jesus seated on her lap. Among its relics was a phial of the Virgin's milk.

Walsingham became one of northern Europe's great places of pilgrimage and remained so through most of the Middle Ages.