HIGHLIGHT: East Barsham
In the hamlet of East Barsham I enter the sacred space around Walsingham. From here, medieval pilgrims proceeded with great reverence, as we do again today.
The lane I have been following from Fakenham on the London to Walsingham Camino brings me out at the church of All Saints, cushioned on a tree-sheltered mound, the graveyard full of wildflowers – daffodils just giving way to bluebells when I visit.
This is the remnant of a once-larger church, reduced to a stump after the Dissolution. The short, squat nave has two great gothic arched windows on either side that are far too big for it, as if it has its eyes wide open. A pitched-tile roof above the porch caps what once would have been a tall tower.
Inside it is a very organic place, lime plaster gently crumbling, the loamy smells of the damp churchyard wafting in. A little statue of Our Lady of Walsingham sits in a niche beside a window.
Pre-Reformation, this church was under the care of the monks at Castle Acre, a day’s walk back along the path of the London to Walsingham Camino.
Next to it stood the chapel of St Saviour of the Greeting of Our Lady, where pilgrims attended Mass.
Next door to the church is a pub, the Barsham Arms, and beyond that the handsome manor house, its highly decorative brickwork making it look like an elaborate cake in dusty orange icing.
From this house, says Leonard Whatmore in his book Highway to Walsingham: ‘Henry VIII is said to have walked to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham barefoot.’ He did so, in 1513, to pray for the child his wife, Catherine of Aragon, was carrying. The baby, a longed-for son and heir, did not survive.
Whatmore quotes an account of Henry VIII’s barefoot pilgrimage from Sir Henry Spelman, who died in 1641 at the age of 80.
He had spent his boyhood in Walsingham and later recalled: ‘The common report prevailed, when I was yet a boy, that Henry VIII King of England proceeded with bare feet from Barsham to the presence of the Virgin; and having made his requests offered a necklace of outstanding value; perchance to propiate the Saint whom he was to root out of her monastic shrine and in a short time drive into banishment.’
I ponder, as I walk on, how Henry, who held the Holy House at Walsingham Priory in such reverence, and showered it with such riches, could have turned against it so profoundly that he sought to erase it from the earth.
For what reason, ultimately?
The want of a wife who could bear him a healthy son? On such personal tribulations are profound changes wrought, if you happen to be a king.
Find out more
For all you need to know in order to follow the London to Walsingham Camino, check out the guidebook
For highlights on each stage of the route, click on the links in the drop-down menu