St. Margaret Clitherow's Shrine, York

A short pilgrimage walk connects the site of St. Margaret Clitherow’s home in The Shambles, now her shrine, to her place of execution on Ouse Bridge

Highlights

• Catholic martyr’s shrine and site of execution

A tiny downstairs room in one of York’s most picturesque streets contains the shrine of St Margaret Clitherow, killed in 1586 for the simple crime of sheltering a Catholic priest. She lived in a house in The Shambles, a picturesque street in the middle of York, famous for its jumble of medieval timber-framed buildings. Her shrine is in a property a few doors along from her actual home, and is open during the day.

Though busy with tourists taking a quick look, it is still a relatively quiet place to sit out of the thoroughfare. The room has an altar, with modern statues of the saint on the left and a priest on the right. It has a low ceiling with heavy beams, an intimate and domestic setting for a consecrated chapel.

St Margaret lived in number 10/11 The Shambles with her husband John Clitherow, a butcher. She converted to Catholicism, and though he remained a Protestant he supported her despite the dangers. During a search of their property, a priest’s vestments were discovered, and St Margaret was arrested. At her trial of 14 March, she refused to plead, stating that she had done nothing wrong. Refusing to plead was in itself a punishable offence. The manner of her execution is barbaric even by the standards of the 16th century.

She was taken to the tollbooth on Ouse Bridge on 26 March and crushed to death under a heavy door progressively loaded with weights. A boulder was placed under her back to ensure her spine snapped. Because she harboured a Catholic priest.

Queen Elizabeth I was so disgusted by the manner of her execution that she wrote a letter to protest: the sentence should not even have been carried out on a woman. St Margaret’s hands were removed after her execution and are now venerated as relics. One remains in York – not at her shrine but at the Bar Convent near the railway station. The other can be seen in the huge relic collection at Fernyhalgh in Lancashire.

The site where St Margaret was executed is now marked by a plaque on Ouse Bridge, the middle of York’s three main bridges. The plaque was unveiled in 2008.

St Margaret Clitherow was canonised on 25 October 1970, one of the 40 Catholic Martyrs of England and Wales. Her shrine is managed by St Wilfrid’s RC Church in York and visited by an annual pilgrimage: stmargaretclitherow.org.

Directions

St. Margaret Clitherow’s Shrine, 35 The Shambles, York YO1 7LX

www.stwilfridsyork.org.uk (click link to the saint)

W3W: audit.grabs.farm GPS: 53.9593N 1.0801W (shrine)

W3W: gone.fast.audio GPS: 53.9573N 1.0843W (bridge)

St. Margaret’s shrine is halfway down The Shambles on the west side (left as you walk uphill towards York Minster). It is open daily, and Mass is celebrated on Saturday mornings at 10 am.

To reach the plaque marking St. Margaret’s execution site, walk downhill to the end of The Shambles and turn right. Continue straight along Pavement, then High and Low Ousegate, leading to Ouse Bridge. Cross the bridge, staying on the left pavement. The plaque is on the far side of the river, on the wall near the end of the bridge.

The Bar Convent, a working convent where one of St. Margaret’s relics is kept, is located on Blossom Street. For more information, visit www.bar-convent.org.uk.