“Impossible not to like it, we were enthralled.”
Our rooms…
Welcome to Little Walsingham and life at The Old Bakehouse, halfway up the sunny side of the High Street, where pilgrims have been coming to the village since 1061 to seek “help in time of need” through the intercession of Our Lady and the Saints.
This is a Catholic family home, and we aim to welcome you warmly, whatever your reason for coming to this beautiful corner of North Norfolk; bird-watchers, Thursford visitors, cyclists, dog-walkers, weekend breakers; history buffs, Priests, religious, retreatants, writers looking for inspiration… we hope you find here the atmosphere of a traditional country house… a cup of tea in the sunlit breakfast room… a glass of wine by the log burner in the evening… a very quiet and peaceful night’s sleep with the sound of an owl nearby perhaps.
There has been a building on this site for at least 700 of those 1000 or so years, since the Lady of the Manor at the time, Richeldis de Faverches, was favoured with visions of the House of the Annunciation in Nazareth.
The Georgian facade of the building has been in place since the mid-18th century, but there are parts of the house which are much older. The great humanist scholar, Erasmus, visited the Shrine twice in the early 1500’s and stayed at “The Falcon Inn” - records indicate that that building was originally a large premises that included parts of our building and our neighbours, next door at what is now called “Falcon House”. Elizabeth Fry stayed here at the Bakehouse in the 1900’s - a relative of the Gurney family, whose descendants own Walsingham Abbey.