Visit to the Shrine of our lady of the Craggs, Knaresborough
We arranged a visit with the charity that owns and cares for the shrine on Saturday 6th July, they are not normally open on a Saturday, but they agreed to open specially for our visit. The site is up the side of a cliff In Knaresborough, down a narrow road. During bad weather the path is dangerous and therefore closed, we were very relieved to have a pleasant day (I would have considered it rather warm! But I get warm easily…)
We met at the waterside carpark for 10am, with a quick trip to the public loos (and café to grab a sarnie/coffee) nearby we were ready to wander down the road to the shrine.
The chapel has a wonderful website with some pictures and a rather nicely written history section: https://www.ourladyofthecrag.org/history
The first written record of this place is from 1408 when a master mason was given permission to build and carve the shrine. There’s a lovely story that he asked to do this as his son was saved from being crushed to death in the quarry by what he perceived as a divine miracle. One of the site keepers, Julie, gave us a very informative lecture, I was surprised to find they suspect the site is much older than this as there is what is thought to be a carved Janus head behind the door.
There was much admiration of the acoustics of the small chapel space, horror at the original (almost vertical) stairs in the cliff and signing of the visitors’ book. The site did not charge us for this visit, and we made a small donation instead of a fee.
We left an ID populace badge as tribute, and Alessandra left an Icon that belonged to their grandmother at the shrine.
We have been invited to come back any time and the lady who hosted us is quite interested in Latin (which I believe she is fluent in) so we may have a new friend!
After the visit we bumbled back along towards the carpark, visiting the antiques/book shop and heading to the café or car park to eat lunch. After lunch I was quite tired, but the more enduring folk made the trek to the top of the cliff where I believe they had a nice visit with the castle and a craft market.
We hope to revisit the site, and possibly lend some aid to their gardening and restoration efforts in the future. Considerations must be made to the facilities and accessibility though as the site has some difficult terrain.
A total of 8 people attended the visit, and two corgis of course!
Pictures below courtesy of Master Yannick, with the knight by myself,
Yours in regard,
Amy Of Osgoldcross
