Performing Pilgrimage to the Lourdes of Wales

Kathryn Hurlock is Professor of Religious and Military History at Manchester Metropolitan University.

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviationsImagesIntroduction: St Winefride and Her WellChoosing St Winefride’s WellThe JourneyWomen, Philanthropy, and PilgrimagePerforming PilgrimageThe Lourdes of Wales?Memory and AftermathConclusionBibliographyIndex

This important study examines the unbroken history of pilgrimage at St Winefride’s Well over nine centuries, and provides new and timely insight into an aspect of pilgrimage often overlooked today. In telling Holywell’s story, focusing particularly on its survival through the Early Modern period and its boom years in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this extensively researched book brings to life the experiences of pilgrims across a period little associated with British pilgrimage. It is a valuable reminder that pilgrimage in the British Isles did not completely die out in the centuries following the Reformation, but was kept alive by the Catholic faithful in the small Welsh town that owes its name to its famous curative well.