Marooned on its own little island. The water pump house at Walsingham (G.Laird/geograph)
I may have mentioned once or twice before a quote from a review someone gave my book A149 Landmarks.
“This man….”. the reviewer expostulated, ‘…is OBSESSED with water towers’
Well stand by. Because here’s another one.
I’m not ‘obsessed’ with them by the way. But I do find them very interesting features on the landscape, as, more often than not, the designer of same will do their level best to make sure it looks nothing like a water tower….
…and, oh! The infinite variety.
Walsingham’s water feature (which has nothing to do with Charlie Dimmock) is, size wise, extremely modest. Indeed, its overall look could best be described as prosaic.
Prosaic. But beautifully, wonderfully so (Len Williams/geograph)
But I’ll say this for it.
I bet its the only medieval water pump in the world you can find depicted on a fridge magnet?
Available (at the time of writing) from the Slipper Chapel shop for just £2.00.
Making the most of your marketable assets at religious shrines and places of worship is not just a symbol of these rampant commercial times however. Medieval visitors to Walsingham would almost certainly have worn the fridge magnets of the time which were as collectable then as our modern day kitchen knick-knacks are now.
Pilgrim badges showed the faithful not only where the wearer was going (and to therefore be easily identifiable to fellow pilgrims) but, in the same manner as wealthy merchants looked to secure their place in heaven by financing the construction of large wool churches, pilgrims would have equally hoped their own modest devotion, marked by their pilgrimage and their very public ‘badge of allegiance’ would have earnt them the same eternal rewards as the wealthy.
Even I’ve got one. Granted, it lives on my boiler, rather than my fridge. Whether or not it will guarantee me my place in paradise remains to be seen….
The medieval badges were usually made of lead alloy and sold as souvenirs on the pilgrimage site itself. Each would have featured an image of the saint who was venerated at that particular location and, over time, and just as people smother their fridges today with the ubiquitous magnets, committed pilgrims would have amassed quite a collection of badges from all the well known sites of religious devotion.
There is little difference, therefore, between buying a badge at Walsingham in the sixteenth century and purchasing a fridge magnet at the gift store today other than, of course, no self respecting medieval tradesman would have dared produce a badge with an image on it that did not refer to the Saint in question- lest they face charges of marketing and selling craven images.
So what has the water pump in Walsingham done to deserve its place on a modern day souvenir?
Much of it is, of course, down to modern day commercial tastes. Walsingham is a world famous site and a very picturesque one, full of historical detail and olde world charm. In such a location, a sixteenth century octagonal pump house is going to merit some attention, particularly as it is in a prominent position in the village known as the Common Place.
The Holy House at Walsingham. There is, undeniably, a sense of…something… in there (Colin Smith/geograph)
A prominent feature on the pump house is the iron brazier that sits, fairly precariously, upon its stone roof. This was referred to locally as the ‘beacon’ and would, at one point, have been the only source of street lighting in the entire village meaning that, certainly in medieval times, for all the spiritual light that would have emanated at Walsingham, it would, at the dead of night, have been a very dark place indeed.
This must have made it as much a gathering place for the local thieves and muggers as it would the pilgrims who would have been their prey. The brazier is still lit on special occasions, as, for example, it was when it became part of the chain of beacons that were lit around the country during the late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012.
The pump house was once also adorned with a pinnacle that was, sadly, never replaced after it was broken off in around 1900. Current opinion differs as to what was the cause of this particular act of vandalism (although, for once, we cannot blame the Reformation) but it is thought to have happened as a result of a rather extravagant application of bunting in and around it during either the celebrations for the Relief of Mafeking or the coronation of King Edward VII.
Clearly, the residents of Walsingham never let the villages status as a place of quiet devotion and prayer from stopping them having a good party.