A pious woman, Richelde of Fervaques built a chapel at Walsingham about AD 1130; her son William converted it into a priory about twenty years later. The original chapel may have been meant to reproduce the Holy House at Nazetheth where the Annunciation took place. The abbey is now a ruin, but Walsingham with its nearby shrine and Slipper Chapel has now again become an important place of pilgrimage, visited annually by many thousands of Anglicans and Roman Catholics. Mr Dickinson gives a detailed and scholarly history of the priory in the first part of his 1956 book. The second part traces, from the remains and past records, the architecture of the site. The plates and plan help the reader to follow this reconstitution and give some idea of the past beauty of the monastery and its shrine.
