Our Lady of Ipswich

Our Lady of Ipswich (also known as Our Lady of Grace) was a popular English Marian shrine before the English Reformation. Only the shrine at Walsingham attracted more visitors.

There was a time when England was known as 'Our Lady's Dowry'. Anglo-Saxon England sheltered many shrines to the Virgin Mary: shrines were dedicated to her at Glastonbury in 540, Evesham in 702, Tewkesbury in 715, Canterbury in 866, Willesden in 939, Abingdon before 955, Ely in 1020, Coventry in 1043, York in 1050, and Walsingham in 1061. By the High Middle Ages there were sixteen shrines to Mary in Suffolk alone.

About half of the medieval churches in Suffolk were dedicated to St Mary under a particular title or devotion. Churches not dedicated to Mary, would have contained a Marian shrine, generally at the east end of the south aisle. Some shrines became so popular that they were translated to buildings of their own. This may be how the shrine of Our Lady of Grace came to be. During the High Middle Ages, the shrine of Our Lady of Grace was second only to that of Our Lady of Walsingham.

The medieval town of Ipswich was a busy maritime centre of trade and shipbuilding. The inns and taverns of the town were full of pilgrims who flocked to the shrine of Our Lady of Grace in Lady Lane, near St Mary the Elm Church.

The shrine to Our Lady of Grace at Ipswich is first recorded in 1152. In 1297 the daughter of Edward I, Princess Elizabeth, married the Count of Holland in the shrine. Between 1517 and 1522, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon paid separate visits to the shrine, as did Sir Thomas More and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who was born in Ipswich.

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