The Pugin Floor Tile

There was a tangible golden ambience in Stanbrook Abbey chapel created by morning sunlight streaming through the windows, bouncing off the woodwork, and dancing across the floor tiles.

These exquisite floor tiles made by Mintons were designed by Edward Welby Pugin, the eldest son of eminent architect/designer, Augustus Welby Pugin.

The design of this tile captured our attention. It was used in the floor area separating the Eastern Chapel from the main body of the chapel known as The Choir. 

Originally the Eastern chapel had an elaborate metal screen which afforded privacy to The Choir area. A visiting priest could give his sermon from behind the screen unseen by the nuns sitting in The Choir. When the nuns stopped being an enclosed order during the early 1970s the screen had been removed.

   I found the design intriguing - what did it represent?
 

What was the bird - a Raven or a Crow? 

What did it carry in it's beak and was it of any significance?  

After exploring several blind alleys, I considered the fact that the nuns belonged to a Benedictine Order,

  and happily discovered that I was finally travelling along the right road.

 St. Benedict lived as a hermit, in spiritual isolation in a cave. Upon the death of an abbot in a nearby monastery, St. Benedict, who was known for his sanctity, was asked to become the new abbot. However, the strict discipline and obedience that he demanded so angered the other monks that they added poison to his bread. Each morning St. Benedict would feed pieces of his bread to a raven, but detecting the poison Benedict taught the bird to fly away with the deadly bread to a place where it could do no harm. St. Benedict decided to leave the monastery and returned to live in the wilderness that he loved. 

courtesy wiki
Saint Benedict of Nursia 480-543 Detail from a fresco by Fra Angelico (c. 1400-1455) in the Friary of San Marco, Florence
****
 
Nursia has now been renamed Norcia. It is a remote Italian town surrounded by the Apennines in Umbria. Norcia was at the epicentre of the Italian earthquake 18 months ago. Norcia is reknowned in Italy for its wild boar hams and sausages, along with its much sought after black truffles. We travelled there many years ago, but did not realise the significance of St. Benedict to the town at that time. 

History of Stanbrook Abbey

Although the Abbey is no longer a religious establishment it has been sympathetically refurbished into an hotel. There is a new stone exterior entrance, and in spite of the fact that the interior is now used differently it still retains its original character. The building was in a terrible state having had very little attention or maintenance done for 50 years.

Sister Charlotte's Restaurant

Breakfast is taken in what was once known as the Calefactory, or warming room. It was a common room for the nuns where they could gather to warm themselves and carry out tasks such as sewing. It housed a communal fire, and in the earliest days of the convent would have been the only room that was heated. 

In 2005, the Abbess decided that the Pugin designed Abbey must be sold, and that it would be best to relocate to somewhere smaller. The buildings were too large and extremely costly for the few remaining nuns to manage and maintain.

Now Stanbrook Abbey with its handful of Benedictine nuns have relocated to North Yorkshire. They commissioned an ethical and sustainable contemporary new abbey using the latest green technology. Completed in 2015, it has already won several architectural awards.

This particular order of Benedictine nuns traces its roots back as far as 1625. It was founded by eight, young, well connected, English Catholic women, living in exile in Cambrai, Flanders. At that time England forbade the setting up of Catholic religious houses. The chief foundress was 17 year old Helen Moore, who was the great, great, granddaughter of Sir Thomas Moore. 
Over 150 years later in 1793 French revolutionists, seized their property in Cambrai, and imprisoned the nuns near Paris where they lived under a harsh regime, narrowly escaping the guillotine.  The small handful that survived were eventually set free and returned to England. In 1838 they settled near Malvern having acquired 22 acres of land along with a Georgian manor house called Stanbrook Hall.

Sir Thomas More was a councillor to King Henry VIII, and the Lord High Chancellor of England. However, he strongly opposed the Protestant Reformation - a stance that led to him being executed. He was a leading and much venerated Roman Catholic who was canonised as a martyr in 1935 by Pope Pius XI. 

This corridor called the Priest's Cloister leads from the original Georgian manor house into the chapel. The corridor allowed a visiting priest private access to the eastern end of the chapel only. From behind a screen he would then deliver his sermon to the nuns. The nuns would enter via a different corridor and sit in the main body of the chapel called the Choir.
The chapel has now been deconsecrated and is used for weddings.

The Georgian manor has several bedrooms where a bride along her party can stay and make their preparations for the wedding day.

Augustus Welby Pugin died when he was just 40 years old having designed many dozens of mainly eclesiastical Catholic buildings, but his most notable building must be the Palace of Westminster and the tower that holds Big Ben. 

  Is it possible to die from overwork?

Pugin achieved far more in his short working life than most could ever hope to do given a lifetime twice as long. He left behind a young family of eight children - the youngest was a baby and the eldest eighteen years old. I have previously written two posts about Augustus Welby Pugin entitled God's Own Architect and The Convent School should you wish to find out more about him.

 

When the work on Stanbrook Abbey began Augustus Welby Pugin was already dead, but three of his 8 children, Edward, Cuthbert and Peter all worked on the abbey. They adopted their father's Victorian Gothic Revival style with each one taking reponsibilty for different areas of the abbey. They were also assisted by their brother-in-law George Coppinger Ashlin.

Let's wander down some more gothic corridors until we arrive at the former nuns refectory where they would gather together to eat their meals.

The Crucis cloister has fourteen stone carved stations of the cross by Richard Lockwood Boulton, an English sculptor.

In the nuns refectory, stone family crests of the eight nuns who founded the order in 1625, act as base supports to the ceiling beams. A particular feature of this room were the oak fittings carved by Robert 'Mousey' Thompson famous for carving mice into every piece of furniture that he made. He made 14 refrectory tables and 80 chairs for the room in 1923, but these have now been relocated to the new abbey. Thompson also made a pulpit for the refectory along with some wall panelling which are still insitu. The pulpit bears the coat of arms of the community's original benefactors, and was designed by two of the nuns, Dame Werburg Welch and the abbess, Dame Laurentia McLachlan, the later was described by her good friend George Bernard Shaw as 'an enclosed nun with an unenclosed mind'. It is worth putting these names into google, where you will discover that they were both very talented and interesting women. Early Thompson pieces from the 1920's command very high prices. In December 2003 at Sotherby's, New York, a small Robert Thompson cabinet from the 1920s sold for $70,000.

The panelling

along with Robert Thompson's own ubiquitous little mouse.

Here we played 'hunt the mice' and with difficulty found six running up the bannister.

This is Robert Thompson's own signature mouse. The workshops in Kilburn, Yorkshire continue today with each craftsman using his own style of signature mouse. Although 'brown' furniture is generally in decline, 'mousey' Thompson objects and furniture still continue to be in demand.

The rose window at the eastern end of the chapel was designed by John Hardman, and depicts Our Lady of Consolation protecting the original eight founding nuns. Hardman was a long time collaborator with the Pugin family, most notably in the Palace of Westminster.

 

We had this wonderful building to ourselves. There were a few other guests staying, but we appeared to be the only ones exploring.