The Black Lion Hotel is situated in Friday Market Place next to the Roman Catholic Church.

Car parking in Little Walsingham is either in Friday Market Place or in the car park situated on Coker's Hill.

The Black Lion Hotel is probably the oldest of the hostelries ministering to the needs of medieval pilgrims to the famous shrine of “Our lady of Walsingham,” it is said to have gained its name from the Black Lion on the shield of arms of Queen Phillippa of Hainault, wife of King Edward III of England..

The northern end of the structure was built in 1310 and from 1328 this was to accommodate King Edward III on his numerous pilgrimages, in later years the “Black Lion” became the coaching Inn from which a regular service set out for London.

Today the Hotel is owned and run by Theresa and Christabel, all public rooms have been reinstated to their natural glory with a dining area, leading to the rear courtyard garden the main bar and snug, plus the long bar and lounge, with open fireplace. There are seven letting bedrooms, tastefully decorated with many original features and fireplaces.

Pilgrims have been coming to Walsingham since medieval times (according to the Pynson Ballad of 1465). In 1061 where (according to the Walsingham legend) a Saxon noble woman Rocheldis de Faverches had a series of visions to build a replica of the house of the holy family in Nazareth in honour of her annunciation (when the archangel Gabriel informed her she was pregnant with Jesus).

The site of the Holy House can now be seen in the ruins of the Augustinian priory to the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary which was established c. 1153. By the fourteenth century so many pilgrims were visiting the Holy House in “England’s Nazareth”  the priory had to be enlarged and encased the wooden Holy House in a chapel of stone described by William of Worcester as the Novum Opus in 1479.