A whip-round to save Walsingham, one of the oldest Marian sanctuaries in England. This is the ambition of a congregation headed by a Catholic doctor, David Kingley, in the attempt to reopen that place of worship, which was closed yesterday, January 17th. The Walsingham Sanctuary was erected in 1061, when, as the legend goes, the Virgin appeared to a local noblewoman, Richeldis de Faverches, and asked her to build a replica of the Nazareth home. The sanctuary is comprised of a Catholic church and an Anglican Church plus the “Martyrs’ House”, a prayer house dating back to the Middle Ages which over the last thirty years has been run by the charity “Sue Ryder Car”. David Kingley is sure he will manage to raise the 800,000 pounds that the centre needs to be once again a place of spirituality and monastic studies, which would also host a small shop of local goods.
