What a joy to remember that she is our Mother! Since she loves us and knows our weakness, what have we to fear? Therese of Lisieux
On Sunday 12th October 2025 at 7:00 pm, the candlelit procession with the Statue of Our Lady of Willesden from the shrine church and through the streets of Willesden took place, praying for the protection of London and for the gift of vocations to the priesthood. It will be attended by the seminarians of the Dioceses and Bishop Jim Curry peached.
Our Lady of Willesden Shrine
Original Shine – Prior to English Reformation
The origins of devotion to Our Lady of Willesden are lost in depths of history; but there is evidence by the fifteenth century of a considerable pilgrimage tradition. Pilgrimage medals even now are occasionally found. St Thomas More visited only two weeks before his arrest. It would have been quite an undertaking to visit, as Willesden was just woodland, and bandit country too. But for those living in and around London, it was the perfect way to make a day pilgrimage to an acknowledged Marian shrine without taking the much more arduous route to Walsingham, 120 miles to the north.
In 1538 the axe fell. Along with images from Walsingham and Ipswich, the Willesden image was dragged to Chelsea and burnt in a bonfire: a classic case of Reformation vandalism. The Vicar of St Mary’s had an enormous fine imposed upon him in perpetuity, for idolatry and superstition.
Present Shrine to Our Lady of Willesden
Our Shrine of Our Lady of Willesden
According to tradition, Our Lady has for centuries graced this ancient site not only with her presence but also with a holy well which was deemed to possess miraculous properties and gave its very name to the place (Willesden probably means ‘spring at the foot of the hill’). Little is known about the origins of this well, though it seems to have been connected to the church of St Mary, mentioned in a royal charter as early as 939. Likewise, little is known about the origins of the devotion to Our Lady of Willesden. A Visitation report of 1249 mentions the presence of two statues of Our Lady, one of which must have been the ‘Black Madonna’ (probably encrusted with gold, silver and precious jewels), which was burnt in 1538 by order of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s Vicar General for Ecclesiastical Matters.
By this time the shrine had become famous and pilgrims in their hundreds, if not thousands, journeyed to the sanctuary in the heart of leafy Middlesex. It reached its zenith at the turn of the sixteenth century, when the shrine was frequented by royalty (Queen Elizabeth of York) and future martyrs (St Thomas More), who confidently petitioned the Blessed Virgin under her title of ‘Our Lady of Willesden’. According to a contemporary document, Our Lady appeared to a priest devotee of the shrine, a certain Dr Crewkehorne, in 1537 and said that she wished to be honoured at Willesden as she had in times past. Confounded by opposition, Dr Crewkehorne did not carry out his charge and the shrine did not return to Willesden until the close of the nineteenth century.
It was in 1885 that a Catholic Mission was established in Harlesden to meet the demands of the growing Irish population. The stirrings of the Blessed Virgin were felt once again and, with the help of the local Convent of Jesus and Mary, devotion was fostered to Our Lady of Willesden and a new statue blessed by Cardinal Vaughan in 1892. From humble beginnings with twelve parishioners in 1885 the parish began to flourish and a beautiful Romanesque church was opened in 1931 as both parish church and a National Shrine for the Catholics in England.
