All Hallows Guesthouse, next to St Julian’s Church, was until recently a convent. The remaining nuns have dispersed, and it has now been refurbished as a place of retreat and welcome for travellers. It is run by Josiah English and his wife. ‘What drew you to this role?’ I asked him. It turns out he undertook postgraduate studies in medieval mysticism, and had always fancied working in the hospitality industry. He couldn’t be better suited.
In 1373, Julian received a series of visions, ‘the shewings’, while laying in bed at death’s door. She recovered and became an anchoress – literally bricked up in a cell next to a church. Here she wrote down her Revelations of Divine Love, and, by doing so, became the first woman to write a book in the English language.
Icon in the chapel at All Hallows Guesthouse
In recent decades there has been a revival in interest in Julian and her writings. It is odd how a recluse in medieval Norwich should have such a very profound effect on so many people in our very different contemporary world. It’s easy to think of Julian as a loner, detached from the world around her. But this was very much not the case. Anchorites and anchoresses chose to be in busy cities, anchored in a place where they would have been in demand as spiritual counsellors and advisers. They also had more chance of an income to support their way of life.
Julian’s cell would have included one window into the church, through which she would participate in worship and receive Holy Communion; and another into the street, to which the people of Norwich would have come for wisdom and holy help.
I wonder if this sense of isolation encircled by activity is part of our attraction to her today. It’s the very opposite of the experience of many in our fast-paced, digital age. We are surrounded by activity and connection, but so many people are, in fact, very isolated. Social media, for example, can make us more isolated rather than better connected. From her solitude Julian tells us that ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well’. Increasingly it’s a reassurance that people need to hear.
I was fortified on Friday evening by dinner with Fr Bruce Batstone. Bruce is Vicar of Hornsey, so a colleague of mine in the Edmonton Episcopal Area. He is also Convener of the Companions of Julian of Norwich, a dispersed group of Christians grounded in prayer and study of Julian’s Revelations, including a commitment to solitude. They continue her work today.
I stayed overnight in All Hallows. The bedrooms are named after the Christian heroes of East Anglia. My room, with its view of the Cathedral beyond St Julian’s Church, was called Herbert da Losinga. In the tenth century he bought his bishopric, then repented of his simony, and went on to pay penance by building not only Norwich Cathedral, but also the great churches in Yarmouth and King’s (or Bishop’s) Lynn.
I breakfasted with fellow guest Sandra, who lives close to another significant historical site in the region, Sutton Hoo. She was in Norwich to trace her family tree, and had chosen to stay here not for any overtly spiritual reason, but because it felt safer than an hotel. I think the nuns would have liked that.
The cell in St Julian's Church
I said Morning Prayer in the chapel of the guesthouse, and, after breakfast, went to pray in the reconstructed cell alongside St Julian’s Church. It’s a place where I have often prayed. I knelt where Julian had knelt. I held in my hand a hazelnut, as she had, finding in it ‘all that is made’. There are few places I can think of where silence and contemplation come so naturally.
The rest of this walk is in a separate post. But the image of the hazelnut returned to me this (Sunday) morning. I celebrated Mass at St Mary, East Rudham, which sits beside the road from Fakenham to King’s Lynn.
In today’s gospel reading Jesus says, ‘I am the good shepherd, [who] lays down his life for the sheep.’ I preached about the need for us to place our trust in the Good Shepherd, much as Julian had done. Reflecting on that hazelnut, Julian remarked, ‘It lasteth and ever shall, because God loveth it.’ As the love, care and nurture of the Good Shepherd was revealed to her, may it be revealed to us too today.
East Rudham Church
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