Our Lady's Mirror was created by Fr Patten to keep members of the Society of Our Lady of Walsingham in touch with one another. As well as being the means of telling them what was going on in Walsingham, it enabled him to circulate homilies and devotions, to acknowledge gifts, to accept intercessions and thanks to Our Lady, and constantly to appeal for money for many purposes - towards some new development in his restoration of the Shrine, or to support his many charitable works in and around the village, or simply to fund the Shrine's day-to-day expenses. The Mirror was mostly written by Fr Patten himself. Not everything that he proposed and hoped for in its pages came to fruition; but in its words we still have an unmatched record of the early history and growth of the Shrine. Fr Peter Cobb's book, Walsingham (1990), was compiled almost entirely from extracts and photographs from the Mirror and the subsequent Walsingham Review. Extracts from the whole 109 editions are now on these pages, starting with the first Our Lady's Mirror in January 1926 to the last number, in 1959. Everything that seems important and interesting is included**, and photographs and articles are listed. Devotions, small details of pilgrimage organisation, and most of the appeals for money are omitted. Anyone wanting to have more details or a fuller version of any part is welcome to contact the honorary archivist. [**Most of the occasional updates on the progress of the Sanctuary School, the Children's Home, the College of St Augustine and the Sisters are omitted, but not because they are unimportant, and they are far from uninteresting. However, size, and issues of confidentiality and copyright, preclude this. Michael Yelton's biography of Fr Patten covers all these subjects in some depth.] The extracts are in a few cases paraphrases of the original. Obvious spelling mistakes are corrected, and explanatory notes are given within square brackets. One photograph or illustration from each edition is shown. Article titles are given - we appreciate that these are sometimes brief and uninformative, but are included because they do help people who are researching specific articles and authors. The edition dedicated as a memorial number to Fr Patten is the last of 1958. Each link in the right hand side panel here is to the FIRST issue of a particular year of Our Lady's Mirror: from that page all others can be accessed. NB To Fr Patten the Winter Number was the first of the year, not the last, which can lead to great confusion for readers. ____________ In July 1955 the Friends of Walsingham Occasional Paper (the idea of Fr Derrick Lingwood) had appeared alongside the Mirror to be circulated occasionally to pilgrims and others who were not members of the Society. The final issue, numbered 12, was published in March 1961. For years it had been thought that number 3 in the series was missing, and appeals had been made for a copy. Everyone who has the series has number 3 missing also, and now the set of original proofs has been found, which also lacks number 3. There are a few other cases of Walsingham publications having similar errors of dating editions, so we assume that in this case there simply never was a number 3. There are no illustrations in any edition. READ EXTRACTS FROM: 1 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 ____________

The first edition of the Walsingham Review came out in June 1961 in A5 size, and continues today as an A4 size, adopted in 2003. The title was changed to The Walsingham Review in 2019. The early numbers have no photographs. The latest edition is always available to read on the Shrine’s own website. READ EXTRACTS FROM THE FIRST EIGHT NUMBERS: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 ____________

1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959

Our Lady's Mirror

and its successors