Evesham Abbey, All Saints Church, Evesham

A two-day pilgrimage route covering 21 miles starts at Evesham and ends at Worcester Cathedral, also passing through Pershore

‍Highlights

• Vision of the Blessed Virgin
• Former shrines of four saints

This was one of the holiest places in England: a vision of the Blessed Virgin inspired the abbey’s foundation in the early 8th century. It is the country’s first place known to be founded after a vision of the Virgin, similar to the story of Little Walsingham in 1061.

Like so many other great pilgrimage sites, Evesham’s abbey has ended up as an attractive town-centre park. The public continue to frequent the site, which is continuity of a sort. Two churches and a bell tower survive from the outbuildings of the monastery, and are now found by the entrance to the abbey park.

Five saints were linked to the abbey church during its long history. But the vision of Our Lady appeared to the humblest of recipients, a pig herder named Eof or Eoves. He told St Egwin, bishop of Worcester, who hurried to the site and also received a vision. St Egwin decided to build a monastic community here, sometime around 701. Eof himself was never declared a saint, but the town’s name means ‘Eoves’ homestead’, a recognition of sorts.

The cost of this initial building might have been met by St Wilfrid, Bishop of York, although there is no direct evidence of his involvement. The abbey was dedicated to St Mary and St Egwin by the 11th century and became one of the wealthiest Benedictine monasteries in England.

On entering the park from the marketplace through a half-timbered gateway, there are two churches in front of you. Both were built by the monastery in the 12th century for townspeople to use. The nearest church, on the left, is the parish church of All Saints. It has a richly carved side chapel, dedicated to Our Lady and St Egwin in memory of the former monastery.

The second church has been redundant since 1978. Dedicated to St Lawrence, it is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust but retains a link to its active neighbor. Evesham’s parish church has an impeccable sense of history and has encouraged Roman Catholic and Orthodox pilgrimage to these churches in recent years.

The third and final monastic survivor is the prominent bell tower. It was built in 1513 by Abbot Lichfield, who also partly rebuilt All Saints Church and entirely rebuilt St Lawrence. His tower has a peal of 13 bells and is still used by the parish. It has always been a free-standing structure, which ensured its survival when the abbey’s main church was torn down.

You can walk through the base of the bell tower into the abbey park, where the ruins of the former abbey church are marked on the ground by flagstones. A stone plinth in the middle of a flowerbed records the death of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and pioneer of parliamentary democracy, who died here in 1265, fighting the army of King Henry III. The plinth marks the approximate site of the abbey church’s high altar, where the earl was buried.

The abbey’s shrines were gathered around this high altar. They included the tomb of the founder St Egwin and a later abbot called St Credan, who died here in around 780. The abbey acquired relics of St Oswald and the body of St Wistan in 1019. The abbey’s fifth saint is St Wilfrid, linked only by speculation that he paid for the initial building.

The relics of St Egwin and St Wistan were nearly destroyed shortly after the Norman Conquest when Archbishop Lanfranc cast doubt on their authenticity. He ordered that the saints’ relics be placed in a fire to see if they would burn. In the following century, another archbishop investigated ongoing miracles at the scene of St Wistan’s death.

The saints survived all these early trials, only to succumb to the inevitable at the Reformation. There is no sign of any relics or shrines to be found in Evesham now. A bronze sculpture depicting Our Lady of Eoves appearing before an awe-struck image of the swineherd was installed in the marketplace in recent years.

Directions‍

All Saints Church, Market Place, Evesham WR11 4RW‍

www.eveshamparish.com‍

W3W: hoped.howler.geology

GPS: 52.0917N 1.9473W‍

The two churches, the bell tower, and the site of the abbey church are all located in the same corner of Abbey Park. Enter the park through the Abbot Reginald Gateway at the southern end of the Market Square, and the buildings are directly ahead of you. Both churches are usually open every day, as is the park itself.