Stanbrook Abbey

File:Stanbrook Abbey by Betty Longbottom Geograph 2000408.jpg

Stanbrook Abbey in Wass, North Yorkshire

Stanbrook Abbey is an abbey originally built as a contemplative house for Benedictine nuns. It was founded in 1625 in Cambrai, Flanders, then part of the Spanish Netherlands, under the auspices of the English Benedictine Congregation. After being deprived of their abbey during the French Revolution the surviving nuns fled to England and in 1838 settled in Stanbrook, Worcestershire, where a new abbey was built. The English Benedictine congregation later re-located to Wass in the North York Moors National Park. The property is currently operational as an events venue, and is owned by Clarenco LLP.

History

File:Stanbrook Abbey Exterior.jpg

Former Stanbrook Abbey building in Worcestershire

The chief foundress was 17-year-old Helen More, professed as Sister Gertrude More, who was great-great-granddaughter of St Thomas More; her father, Cresacre More, provided the original endowment for the foundation of the monastery. She eventually became Dame Gertrude More. The English Benedictine mystical writer Dom Augustine Baker trained the young nuns in a tradition of contemplative prayer which survives to the present (as of 2007). Solemnly professed Benedictine nuns are always called "Dame", as Benedictine monks are called "Dom". They are not Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1793, during the French Revolution, the 22 nuns were ejected from their original house and imprisoned in Compiègne for 18 months, during which time four nuns died from the harsh conditions. The survivors returned destitute to England and, with the encouragement of Dom Augustine Lawson, eventually settled in 1838 at Stanbrook, Callow End (), near Malvern, Worcestershire, in the Severn Valley.

The abbey church in Worcestershire was completed in 1871 to the designs of Edward Welby Pugin in Gothic Revival style.

Stanbrook is celebrated for its traditions of Gregorian chant, devotional literature and fine printing. The translations of the writings of St Teresa of Avila are still in print a century after their publication. The Stanbrook Abbey Press was at one time the oldest private press in England, and acquired an international reputation for fine printing under Dames Hildelith Cumming and Felicitas Corrigan. However, although digital printing and publishing continues at the Abbey on a small scale, the fine letterpress printing which made the Press famous had ceased by 1990.

Today

As of 2002 the community numbered 28 professed nuns and two postulants. About 120 lay people, known as oblates, are associated with the monastery.

The community announced in April 2002 that it would be moving. Abbess Joanna Jamieson made the announcement that the Abbey would move from its Victorian abbey, with its 79,000 sq ft (7,300 m²). of monastic buildings 'to make the best use of its human and financial resources'. The Abbey looked at possible sites all over the country until it bought Crief Farm at Wass in the North York Moors National Park. Construction of the new monastery began on 18 June 2007. The building work will be completed in four distinct phases. The community moved into this new Stanbrook Abbey in Wass on 21 May 2009.

In August 2010 the Worcestershire property was sold to Clarenco LLP and it is now an events venue.

Previous abbesses include (in alphabetical order):

• Dame Clementia Cary
• Dame Barbara Constable
• Dame Catherine Gascoigne (First Abbess 1629)
• Dame Margaret Gascoigne
• Dame Frances Gawen
• Lady Cecilia A. Heywood
• Dame Joanna Jamieson
• Dame Laurentia McLachlan
• Dame Agnes More
• Dame Bridget More

Trivia

• Stanbrook Abbey was the model for Brede Abbey in Rumer Godden's 1969 novel, In This House of Brede. Godden, who had asked the nuns of Stanbrook for prayers when her elder daughter was facing a risky pregnancy, gifted the Abbey with a portion of the copyright on the novel.
• Iris Murdoch's novel The Bell is said to have been partly inspired by Stanbrook Abbey.
• Irish folk singer and Celtic harpist Mary O'Hara spent 12 years as a nun at Stanbrook Abbey.

See also

• List of abbeys and priories

References

• Stanbrook Abbey: a sketch of its history, 1625-1925, by a Nun of the same abbey. London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1925.
• Full account from contemporary sources of the early history of the community and the sufferings of the nuns in Cambrai, from Miscellanea VIII, (Publications of the Catholic Records Society, 1911-12, vol. XIII)
• Catholic Encyclopedia entry, 1912

External links

• Stanbrook Abbey site
• Friends of Stanbrook Abbey
• Stanbrook Abbey Hotel