Dispatches: The Prayer of the Heart in England’s Nazareth
Icon-painting in progress. Image credit: Demetra Fenwick
People set great store by the spiritual potency of Glastonbury: maybe it’s the ley lines, or its connection to the Holy Grail, or the amount of MDMA in nearby rivers. And yet very little fuss has been made of Little Walsingham – which has a pretty heavyweight spiritual legacy of its own.
Alright, Little Walsingham doesn’t quite have Glasto’s sex appeal. It’s tucked quietly away in North Norfolk, but this relative obscurity, to my mind, is in its favour. If you are looking to turn down the dial on London noise, then welcome to Little Walsingham.
First, some background colour: this quiet parish has been a place of pilgrimage since the Middle Ages. Nicknamed ‘England’s Nazareth’, it was a key shrine of Medieval Christendom; pilgrims went to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela… and Little Walsingham.
If you are looking to turn down the dial on London noise, then welcome to Little Walsingham.
The official story is that a noblewoman experienced visions of the Virgin Mary in 1061, asking her to build a replica of Mary’s house from Nazareth. Legend has it she even sent angels to help with construction. The priory became a pilgrimage site for paupers and kings alike, and it accumulated relics such as a vial of the Virgin Mary’s milk—until, on the orders of Henry VIII, the shrine was destroyed.
The well of religious feeling runs deep in Little Walsingham
But the well of religious feeling runs deep in Little Walsingham, so deep that not even centuries of being driven underground could shrivel this faith at the root. Each year, hundreds of thousands of Catholics still make their way to this tiny town, and if that’s not the sect for you, there’s a host of other denominations represented here: there are two monastery ruins, an Anglican parish church, a Methodist church, and a Russian Orthodox chapel, all within a stone’s throw of each other. It was this last that brought me here.
The humble entrance to St Seraphim’s Chapel is belied as soon as you look up at one of the only onion domes in the UK, burning golden like a flaming apple. Once a railway house that stands over the now-defunct line, St Seraphim’s is very much a classic English eccentricity as much as it’s a place of worship.
Historically, Orthodoxy (a branch of early Christianity) has little presence in the UK, but Father David brought it to Norfolk in the 1960s. A Welshman who was very interested in British saints, Father David wanted to uncover what’s latently here in the soil, and it is his building and consecration of St Seraphim’s that likely gives this place its distinctly British flavour.
‘He wanted to unearth something that’s deep in the culture of this country,’ Mariamni Plested, iconographer-in-residence, says. ‘For a lot of people, it’s a frontline exposure to Orthodoxy, which is quite rare.’
I am here on a whim. Wanting to spend the weekend out of town, I decided to attend an all-day icon painting workshop at St Seraphim’s. I heard about it from Paul Kingsnorth – author and environmentalist turned Orthodox Christian – meaning far greater writers than I have covered this ground.
Not even centuries of being driven underground could shrivel this faith at the root.
Homemade jams (available at a steal, circa £3) lines the entrance to St Seraphim’s. Inside the simple, whitewashed Chapel is a wooden icon screen; it’s got rugs aplenty, and what looks like an original Victorian fireplace, overlooked by the stern Byzantine models on their gold backdrops. It strikes a peculiar but refreshing balance between homey and place of worship; think more bedtime prayer than gilded pew.
Plested is our workshop leader, and a recent arrival. In a bid to make sure St Seraphim’s could stay open to the public after the death of the last custodian, Plested and her husband Marcus, a theology professor, volunteered to spend eight months here while it’s future is decided. ‘This is where my parents got married,’ says Plested, standing before the alter, ‘and this exact spot is where I got baptised.’
The tricky process of egg tempera is unforgiving. It brings our true selves out into the open, along with our imperfections.
Image credit: Demetra Fenwick
Later, she tells me, ‘I remember there were frescoes being made in another monastery in East Anglia, and I used to go and watch. I loved it. These are my deepest, earliest childhood memories, and over the years I’ve garnered enough of the skills myself to be able to try and offer something back. I’d like to give this place a new chapter.’
Through the back of the one-room museum is a workshop, perched above the former railway. A shelf is lined with pure pigments with evocative names: burnt sienna, ochre, carnelian, ivory black. Outside the window, bunting pirouettes in the breeze.
We pick up a small board covered in gesso, a mixture of gypsum or chalk and glue, and go outside to start sanding it down from a lumpy bumpy thing to a surface as smooth and cool as marble. Plested explains this is like sanding away our own rough edges. In fact, in iconography most of the physical motions have a theological correlation. The tricky process of egg tempera – in which one cannot correct lines once put down, nor can you rub, smudge or redo – is unforgiving. It brings our true selves out into the open, along with our imperfections. But later, the wash used over the image is nicknamed, ‘the wash of forgiveness’, for it blurs the sharpness of mistakes.
As you paint, you are venerating the saint in question…
When you apply a red, earthy colour as the base for gold leaf (traditionally made of a variety of clay called Armenian bole), you breath onto it to reactivate it so the gold leaf sticks. This ‘echoes breathing life into Adam for the first time’. As you paint, you are venerating the saint in question, and the process ought to be done with purpose, though Plested clarifies, ‘as Orthodox Christians, we’re encouraged to pray continually anyway – it’s the prayer of the heart.’
Virgin Mary trial icon in progress
And yet it would be wrong to say that everyone here has come to experience the workshop through a religious lens. There’s a woman who brought her pregnant daughter-in-law because they enjoy trying new art activities. Of course, there are still those who were drawn to the workshop due to their faith, recent converts to Orthodoxy, who are a surprising mix of ages and ethnicities. I am amazed by the enthusiasm of a man and woman, both in their 20s, who share photos of icons they’ve drawn already – albeit with less archaic tools. ‘Pencil is my medium,’ the girl shares happily.
There’s been a sharp rise in Orthodox converts (and religious revival all round) and many pundits peg this as a political issue pertaining specifically to men. ‘That’s a bit frustrating,’ says Plested, ‘there are huge amounts of young people joining, and in my experience it’s women as much as men.’ She goes on to explain that while Orthodoxy is very traditional in the sense of its ordained hierarchy, iconography ‘is open to both sexes’.
As the afternoon wears on, we trace our wobbly lines and mix the golden-bronze hue that is the obligatory skin colour. This shade is used not because it’s realistic, but because it’s the middle point between the brown of earth and the blue of heaven. Iconography goes against everything we’ve been trained to look for by the art market. Generally, icons are not signed. There are no overt trademarks to distinguish individual artists, this humility is valued over self-identifying promotion. There is a rigid system to making them – a formula – which does not allow for what we think of as creative license.
Iconography goes against everything we’ve been trained to look for by the art market.
‘Although the format is restrictive, I find these parameters allow you to find your voice amongst the chorus of other voices who have been singing the same song for centuries’, Plested says. ‘It’s very much about what tradition is and how you find your place in that as a communal activity. Like if you’re doing a Shakespeare play – you’d be nuts to mess with the text. But everyone can bring a unique performance to the part and vivify it in their own way.’
By the time I have irrevocably mutilated my Virgin Mary by daubing a blotchy layer of colour on her, the cloying muddle of noises, niggles, thoughts, and fears that live at the back of my mind starts to flicker… and fizzle out.
Back outside, I stroll through the quiet streets spotting little clues to life around me. Faded statuettes of the Virgin Mary, bunches of flowers on windowsills, crosses hanging over porches.
The Old Bakehouse’s beautiful welcoming fireplace
Given Little Walsingham is not easiest journey from London, I am staying a night at The Old Bakehouse, an eclectic converted Georgian townhouse, where I fall into conversation with the lovely couple who run it. The owners, Justin and Charlotte Harmer, escaped London to live this bucolic dream, and their B&B, which they describe as a ‘Catholic family-run establishment’, keeps up the quirky charm of the town. A branch juts out of the living-room wall, on which a huge toy cheetah lounges; a toy owl peeps its head over a grandfather clock, and a model boat perches atop a chest of drawers. Children can be heard playing in the back of the house.
‘Your son was so polite when he opened the door!’ we tell Charlotte.
‘Did he hide behind the door and jump out at you? Sometimes he does that,’ she laughs.
This delightful familiarity lights up the Walsingham world. I muse on the sort of place that thrives on close connections, and communities that are so palpably real life – not the anonymous alliances of the internet. These people are bonded together through shared belief, by their children weaving in and out of each other’s homes. And if this all seems irregular and you’re freaked out by the thought of hearing children play, then you’ve got too much London in you. I prescribe an extra night’s stay.
‘This is a place you can come and find the stillness and space to address those wars within oneself.’
‘Pilgrim’s Way in Summer’ by Charlotte Harmer (also proprietor of The Old Bakehouse)
The next day, I wake up under the delicious weight of the goosedown feather duvet, wiggling my toes in happy silence. Once I’ve reluctantly vacated the bedroom (next time I stay here I intend to book a room with a fireplace for extra cosiness), and breakfasted heartily off willow patterned plates, it is time to sightsee more spiritual spots.
It may surprise you to hear – as it surprised me – that there are 650 churches in Norfolk, the highest concentration in the world. Dutifully, I set off down the storied pilgrim path to The Catholic National Shrine, walking the whole way encircled with birdsong. Although it feels a bit like a mini-Catholic compound, complete with gift shop, tearoom, and benches for outside mass, it has nothing of the grandeur of this country’s most famous sites. But forget St Paul’s, I would take these places any day for their feeling. The original Greek texts that form the New Testament use the word ekklesia, or an assembly of people called forth for a purpose, where we would now use the word ‘church’. You don’t have to be a believer to see this sense of purpose animating the people here as they come together. That’s the intangible feeling which makes this parish so fascinating.
‘Do you want an interior life? Is that something you can find in London? There are answers to be found.’
The Catholic National Shrine, quite literally wearing a halo
When I speak again to Charlotte Harmer from The Old Bakehouse, who is also an exhibiting artist, she explains, ‘We’re discovering that living in community is just so rich. It’s not always easy, sometimes there’s discord, but despite that you know you’re not only on a journey of the practicalities of life, but of faith. Everybody here is striving for eternal life.’
As I wait to see the famous Slipper Chapel, which was reconsecrated in the 1930s, I watch the devout all around, writing down their prayers busily. I think of Harmer’s comment, ‘Do you want an interior life? Is that something you can find in London? You can go into nature of course, but if you come somewhere like Little Walsingham, you’re also presented with something else. There are answers to be found.’
We all have our cares and concerns, whether they’re about our careers or parenthood or relationships. As Harmer says, ‘if they’re not addressed, then it’s hard for a person to find peace. This is a place you can come and find the stillness and space to address those wars within oneself.’
I was not paid or asked to write about any of the places mentioned.
Mariamni Plested is running icon painting workshops on May 24th and June 28th. More details available here.
Charlotte Harmer is participating in The Salthouse Exhibition at St Nicholas Church, Norfolk, until 21st of April. For more information on her artworks, visit her website here.