Lady Chapel

There was a Lady Chapel in the mediaeval church. The royal mason, Henry Yevele, was buried there in 1400, leaving a bequest for two chaplains to celebrate divine service at the altar of St. Mary and to maintain a lamp perpetually burning, day and night, before the Salutation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the chapel.

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The creation of the modern Lady Chapel was completed in 1925 and serves as a memorial to the parents of the Revd H.J. Fynes-Clinton (Rector of St Magnus from 31 May 1921 until his death on 4 December 1959), the Revd Chares Henry Fynes-Clinton (1835–1915) (Rector of Blandford Forum in Dorset) and Thomasina Gordon Fynes-Clinton (nee Shaw) (1844-1929). Here the daily Eucharist is offered. A video clip may be viewed by selecting the video icon on the right of the screen.

In the floor near the Statue of Our Lady of Walsingham is a small, simple stone inscribed “C.G. 1905-1983 RECTOR 1960-1983”. Its simplicity is due to whom it is dedicated, the Revd Colin Gill, who did not wish to have an eleborate memorial. Fr Gill was closely connected with the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham and served as a Guardian between 1953 and 1983, including nine years as Master of the College of Guardians. He celebrated the Mass at the first National Pilgimage in 1959 and presided over the Jubilee celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Shrine in 1981, having been present at the Holy House’s opening.

The reredos was made from the doorcase of the blocked north entrance; the pediment being adorned by two flaming urns and the round arch enclosing an oval relief (depicting a dove to represent the Holy Spirit) and a copy of a painting of the Madonna and Child. The altar is inscribed “misericordiae mater” (Mother of mercy), an allusion to the opening of the Salve regina antiphon, above which is a tabernacle for reservation of the Blessed Sacrament. On the east wall of the chapel is painted the ‘Holy Counternance of St Veronica’s veil’.

The reredos displays the inscription “Deo optimo maximo in venerate Beatae Mariae Virginis” and exemplifies two armorial bearings reflecting the family history of Fr Fynes-Clinton.

Blazon of the coats of arms on the reredos

1. Revd Chares Henry Fynes-Clinton (arms of Clinton)

Shield: Argent, six crosses crosslet fitchée sable three two and one on a chief azure two mullets or pierced gules

Crest: Out of a ducal coronet gules a plume of five ostrich feathers argent banded with a line chevronways azure

Motto: Loyaulté n’a honte (Old French – Loyalty feels not shame)

Badge: A mullet or pierced gules

2. Revd Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton

Shield: ensigned with a priest’s galero cords and tassels sable

1st quarter (Clinton): Argent, six crosses crosslet fitchée sable three two and one on a chief azure two mullets or pierced gules [The 6th Baron Clinton married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Fiennes and took Fiennes as an alias]

2nd quarter (Odingsells): Argent a fess gules in chief two mullets of the second [The 2st Baron Clinton was the son of Ida de Odingsells]

3rd quarter (Say): Quarterly or and gules [The 4th Baron Clinton succeeded to the Say lands from his cousin Elizabeth, Baroness Say]. 

4th quarter (Mandeville): Quarterly or and gules, over all an escarbuncle sable [Geoffrey de Say, a Magna Carta surety, inherited the Mandeville lands from his mother, Beatrice de Mandeville].

There is a memorial to Fr Fynes-Clinton with the same coat of arms on the panelling at the west end of the north aisle. He was buried, alongside his parents, in the churchyard of St John, Old Malden on 8 December 1959, the feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Chapel of the Holy Cross, Our Lady of Victory and St John at the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham is dedicated as a chantry to the Fynes-Clinton family. 

Family history of Fr Fynes-Clinton

Fr Fynes was the grandson of the Revd Charles John Fynes-Clinton (1799–1872), Rector of Cromwell in Nottinghamshire; great grandson of the Revd Dr Charles Fynes-Clinton (1748–1827), “a ‘high and dry’ divine of the old school”, who was Canon (1788-1827) and Sub Dean of Westminster and Rector of St Margaret’s Westminster; and a descendant of Sir Henry Clinton (1587–1641), son of Henry Clinton, 2nd Earl of Lincoln, 10th Baron Clinton (1541–1616). He was therefore a cousin of Henry Pelham-Clinton, 7th Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne (1864–1928), another staunch Anglo-Catholic, and of the Duke’s sister, Lady Emily Augusta Mary Pelham-Clinton (1863–1919; wife of the Prince Alfonso Doria Pamphilj of the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj, which now houses the Anglican Centre in Rome).