1939 Compiled by the Revd Donald Hole. Hardback cover. Contains Compiler's Preface dated June 1939, 10 chapters, 3 appendices, 30 photographs, 3 plans. Indexed; advertisements. “The Compiler of these records (he can hardly call himself the ‘author’), lays claim to no original research. His task has been the comparatively simple one of making selection from the printed matter supplied to him, and weaving it into a consecutive narrative. ... The revival of the Cult of Our Lady of Walsingham, and the restoration of her Shrine in recent times, is chronicled in the Quarterly Paper ... "Our Lady's Mirror". In weaving the matter thus supplied to him, into a narrative form, the present writer has endeavoured to co-ordinate it with the history of the Church of England, past and present, and to exhibit the remarkable parallels which seem thereby to be suggested.” D.H. 1948 : second edition Revised by Fr Patten after Fr Donald Hole's death. Cardback cover. Contains the original Preface by Fr Donald Hole, with a second Preface [by Fr Patten]. The same text, with an extra Appendix describing more recent developments at the Shrine. 8 more photographs. Indexed; no advertisements. “The death of the distinguished author of this book in 1947 has been a very great loss, for Father Donald Hole was a devoted client of Our Lady of Walsingham, ever ready to wield his pen in her cause and that of the Church of her Divine Son. The devotion to the Holy Mother of God which has developed so considerably since this little book was first published owes much to him. Still looked at with doubt by officialdom, its influence is spreading and has a place in the religion of an ever-increasing number of Anglicans at home and abroad.” [A.H.P.] 1959: regarded by the publishers as a first edition [in reality the third] Very heavily revised by Fr Colin Stephenson. Fr Donald Hole's original Preface is reproduced, with a Reviser's Preface by Fr Stephenson, dated 1958. Foreword by John Betjeman. 8 chapters, 3 appendices, 15 photographs, 3 plans. Not indexed; no advertisements. “So much has happened since Fr Hole's book was published in 1939 that I have had to revise and rewrite a good deal, but it remains substantially as he devised it. Such work as I have done has been a labour of love and is offered as a tribute to Fr Patten, to whose inspiration I and many others owe a great debt. There are also many others who have helped Fr Patten in the restoration of the Shrine and in the work which has been done and only a few of them are mentioned here by name, but I am sure that those who are not mentioned will not mind letting the main light rest on him who more than any other restored us to England's Nazareth.” C.S. 1969: again regarded as a first edition [in reality the fourth edition] So heavily revised again, by Fr Colin Stephenson, that he declined to put his or Fr Hole's name on it, although it is still very much a version of the previous books. Preface by Fr Stephenson. Foreword by Bishop Mervyn Stockwood. 8 chapters, 3 appendices, 15 photographs (some new), 3 plans. Not indexed. “On the day he died Fr Patten told me he wished me to revise [this book], but I was forced to do it in something of a hurry and without his advice, which would have been invaluable. I very much altered the shape of the book and put the essay on devotion to Our Lady and the rather controversial matter about the site of the original Holy House as appendixes ... and I added a chapter to bring things more or less up to date. The original edition had a profusion of illustrations, but that had become impossible to reproduce for economic reasons, so that I was forced to limit their number to four pages. ... A lot has happened in the last ten years so that I have re-written the last chapter and many of the photographs are now out of date and have been replaced.” C.S. 1974: a second edition of the above [in reality the fifth edition], with only slight revisions, by Fr Alan Carefull, in order to bring it up to date. Preface by Fr Carefull. Same Foreword by Bishop Mervyn Stockwood, and the same pattern of contents. Not indexed. “This book began its career in 1939 when it was written by Father Donald Hole. It was extensively revised by Father Colin Stephenson soon after he became Administrator and again in 1969. In the preface to the last edition he wrote, "It has needed so much revision to bring it up to date, that I think it better that neither Donald Hole's nor my own name should appear." Now in 1974 another edition is called for. This time the revisions are few. They consist mostly of insertions to bring the Walsingham story up to date. This is in no sense, therefore, a new book but it remains the most comprehensive account available of England's Nazareth.” Alan Carefull. 1978: another edition of the above [in reality the sixth edition], with even fewer revisions, by Fr Alan Carefull; these seem to be confined to the chapter on 'Walsingham Today'. Same Foreword by Bishop Mervyn Stockwood, and the same pattern of contents. Not indexed. Fr Carefull's Preface is exactly the same [as in previous paragraph], except for the substitution of '1978' for '1974'. 1985: described as the third edition [in reality the seventh edition] Another edition of the above, now with a different cover. Perhaps surprisingly the cover image is that of Notre Dame de Paris, rather than of Our Lady of Walsingham, but this image stood on the west end gable of the Shrine Church from 1931 to 1966. The book is essentially the same as before, with revisions by Fr Christopher Colven, confined to the chapter on 'Walsingham Today'. Preface by Fr Colven. Foreword by Bishop Eric Kemp; the same pattern of contents, but unfortunately the list of illustrations from the 1978 book has been printed here, and does not correlate with the new set of photographs (now 13, not 15) in this book. Not indexed. '"England's Nazareth" is very much a period piece! It was originally written by Fr Donald Hole in 1939, but such has been the pace of change that it has needed revision in 1960 and 1969 by Fr Colin Stephenson, and in 1978 by Fr Alan Carefull. Now in 1985, it falls to me to bring the story up to date, but in so doing I hope that none of the charm of Fr Hole's original work has been lost. ... I would like to place on record the Shrine's debt to Fr Colin Gill who died in July, 1983 and to offer this revision in his memory.”’ Christopher Colven. 1990: described as the fourth edition [in reality the eighth edition] Another edition of the above, and the last. This is a straight re-issue of the previous volume, with no changes, not even a corrected list of illustrations. Only the paler shade on the cover of the 1990 edition can distinguish them.

A History of the Holy Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham 1939 : 1948 : 1959 : 1969 : 1974 : 1978 : 1985 : 1990 the first and third editions were called England's Nazareth: all the rest are entitled Walsingham England's Nazareth Until 1970 this book, despite its many revisions, was the only straight narrative of Fr Patten’s Restoration of the Shrine. There are earlier chapters on the medieval history, but as he writes in his Preface, Fr Donald Hole made no claim to serious historical research. Nevertheless, this was the readable book for every pilgrim, supported by more photographs than had ever before been publicly available. It had a serious printing error in one chapter, giving the date of the Restoration of the Shrine in the Guilds Chapel as 6 July 1921 instead of 1922, which was never corrected in subsequent editions and was occasionally perpetuated. The priest and academic John Dickinson’s The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham (1956; reprinted 2011) is a scholarly account of the medieval history of the Shrine as known at that time, still of immense value in its detail. In 1970 Fr Colin Stephenson published his Walsingham Way, professing “no pretensions to scholarship”, but producing a highly entertaining introduction to the Shrine’s history. In 2011 Michael Rear published his comprehensive survey of the whole history of Walsingham and the Shrine from the earliest times to the present day, and his 2019 second edition contains even more new material. With all these books, and Michael Yelton’s 2006 (revised 2022) biography of Fr Patten with its detailed history of his Restoration, we are well served.