All the kings of England from Henry III (1226) to Henry VIII (1511) came to Walsingham on pilgrimage. In 1538 the Reformation caused the Priory property to be handed over to the King's Commissioners 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. After the destruction of the Shrine, Walsingham ceased to be a place of pilgrimage. In 1896 Charlotte Pearson Boyd purchased the Slipper Chapel outside the village and it was restored for Catholic use. A Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was built in the Church of the Annunciation in King's Lynn and from they’re the first public pilgrimage to Walsingham, since the Reformation, came on 20th August 1897.
In 1922 a new vicar, the Rev. Alfred Hope Patten established a Shrine in the Parish Church of St. Mary. This was transferred to the newly built Anglican Shrine in 1931. In 1934 Cardinal Bourne led a pilgrimage of 10,000 and declared that the National Shrine of Our Lady was to be at the Slipper Chapel. Since the 1950's the Shrine of Our Lady has developed constantly and it has become firmly re-established as a place of pilgrimage and worship. Today over 250,000 people (pilgrims tourists) visit the Roman Catholic Shrine each year, on most summer weekends there are Diocesan or other organizations pilgrimages taking place.
In the Middle Ages Walsingham was one of the four great shrines of Christendom with pilgrims coming from all parts of the world. There were wayside chapels along the pilgrim route and the slipper chapel was the last and most important of these. Pilgrims stopped here to go to mass and to confess there sins before walking the last mile to the holy house in Walsingham. The name of the chapel may come from the fact that pilgrims removed there shoes to walk the last mile or it may come from the word “Slype” meaning a way through or “something in between”, the slype or slip chapel standing as it did between the holy land of Walsingham and the rest of England.
In 1538 the shrine and priory were destroyed and the slipper chapel, although not damaged, passed into disuse. It was used successfully as a poor house, a forge, a barn and even a cow byre. Stories of older residents suggest that even during this time of neglect occasional pilgrims would still come and prey there. In 1896 it was bought by Charlotte Boyd and restoration began that following year. For thirty years the slipper chapel remained restored but little used, as devotion to our lady Walsingham was centre of kings Lynn. On august 15th 1934, Bishop Youens of Northampton celebrated the first public mass in the slipper chapel for four hundred years, and two days later Cardinal Bourne led a national pilgrimage of more than 10,000 people to the shrine.
