London: Campaign to restore Islington's lost Marian Shrine

Our Lady of the Oak

A campaign to restore the ancient shrine of Our Lady of the Oak, in Islington, north London, has been launched. Both local Catholic and Anglican churches are supporting the project.

The ancient shrine to 'Our Lady of the Oak, Islington,' is now commemorated at Walsingham, but for more than 400 years, it was a significant pilgrimage site in London. Historians believe it was one of the first seven shrines founded in England, founded in 1130 AD.

The shrine was located to the west of the present St Mary's Church. in Upper Street.

In 1538, during the Reformation, an official letter records that the statue of Our Lady from the shrine was burned, together with those from the Marian shrines in Worcester, Walsingham, Islington, Ipswich and Doncaster in England and that of Pen Rhys in Wales. The bonfire took place in Chelsea, on what had been the riverside estate of St Thomas More. After More was martyred in 1535, Thomas Cromwell, chief minister of Henry VIII, confiscated More's house and land, and ordered a bonfire to be lit there on which many hundreds of religious objects looted from churches and monasteries, were destroyed. The fire is said to have burned for three weeks. The smoke was seen for miles.

The inaugural meeting of Our Lady of the Oak, Islington took place on the Feast of Our Lady Queen of Heaven on 22 August. Poet Sarah de Nordwall ran a workshop on 'the secret garden of the heart', and participants prayed the rosary around the site of the original shrine.

One of the campaign organisers writes that: "The call to restore Islington's holy site is both a practical one and a spiritual one. Medieval people would have walked up the hill to St Mary's and found solace and healing there at the shrine of the Oak. The challenge is to restore Islington (and then the world!) to be a place of healing. We live in a chaotic world and this would be a beacon of sanity amidst the chaos... The people of Islington clearly love shrines. There are shrines for victims of knife crime. We would like to see the ancient shrine to Our Lady reinstated here."

The next meeting will be on Thursday, 21 November at 7pm.

The venue is still to be decided. For more information email: ourladyoftheoakN1@gmail.com

LINK

www.facebook.com/OurLadyoftheOakIslington