Quarr Abbey
Encyclopedia
Quarr Abbey is a monastery
between the villages of Binstead
and Fishbourne
on the Isle of Wight
in southern England
. The name is pronounced as "Kor" (rhyming with "for"). It belongs to the Order of St Benedict. The present imposing brick construction was completed in 1912. A community of about a dozen monks maintains the monastery's regular life and the attached farm. In the vicinity are a few remains of the original twelfth-century abbey, an archway, a delicate stone window, fragments of a wall and a barn incorporated into a farmhouse.
, fourth Lord of the Isle of Wight
.
The founder was buried in the Abbey in 1155 and his remains, along with those of a royal princess, Cecily of York
(d. 1507), second daughter of King Edward IV of England
and godmother of Henry VIII
, still lie on the site of the mediaeval monastery, as do other important personages. Arreton Manor
was part of the abbey from the 12th century until 1525.
The name Quarr comes from 'quarry
', because there used to be a stone quarry in the neighbourhood. The original title of the monastery was the Abbey of our Lady of the Quarry. Stone from the quarry was used in the Middle Ages for both ecclesiastical and military buildings, for example for parts of the Tower of London
.
This site became a valuable and productive property. Because of this, it was the tradition for the abbot to be appointed warden or lord of the island. The prevalence of piracy in the area led to the granting in 1340 of special permission to fortify the area against attack. A stone wall, sea gate and portcullis were constructed. The ruins of these defences are still visible.
in 1536, the land was acquired by a Southampton
merchant, George Mills who demolished most of the abbey. Its stone was used for fortifications at the nearby towns of Cowes and Yarmouth. One of the three abbey bells is preserved in the belfry of the nearby Anglican parish church, originally built by the monks of Quarr Abbey for their lay dependants. Salvaged stone was also used to build Quarr Abbey House
.
The founder of Solesmes, Prosper Guéranger, had originally thought of England as a possible place of refuge should the community have to go into exile. Moreover, since 1896, at the invitation of the former Empress Eugénie, the Solesmes Benedictines had taken over as a priory the former Premonstratensian
house of Farnborough Abbey, which sheltered the tomb of Napoleon III.
In this new emergency, several places were considered as a possible refuge. Farnborough was far too small. Other possibilities included the ancient Battle Abbey
near Hastings
on the Kent
coast of England. The Solesmes monks were in urgent need of a home, but the transactions at Battle Abbey would have been lengthy and the expense beyond their limited means.
near Wroxall
on the Isle of Wight
. The house was viewed and accepted, and a lease contract was signed on 19 August 1901. A former monastic site, the construction of the house had been begun in 1701 by Sir Robert Worsley on the site of a Tudor manor house and completed much later (1773) by Sir Richard Worsley
who, from 1787, also established there what was to become a well-known art collection. On the death of Sir Richard in 1805, the estate passed to his niece, who was married to the Second Baron and first Earl of Yarborough
. The family connexion with the house ended in 1855, when the estate was sold off by her son, the Second Earl of Yarborough.
The monks wasted no time in beginning their transfer from Solesmes to the Isle of Wight and, on Saturday 21 September 1901, practically the entire community of Solesmes reached Appuldurcombe.
Already, by September 1904, the community at Appuldurcombe was considering that it might prove necessary to seek another home. They had been at Appuldurcombe for three years and the lease must have been renewed about this time for another four years. Nevertheless, they had begun to look around for another property, probably because they were already aware of the unreasonable attitude of the landlord, who refused to undertake any repairs, so that the community would have the alternative of continuing to renew the lease on a property which they would have to keep in repair themselves, or buying it outright in a state of disrepair.
The first monks arrived at Quarr Abbey House from Appuldurcombe on 25 June 1907 to prepare the grounds and the beginnings of a kitchen garden. They also put up fencing round the property, established a chicken farm, and planted an orchard.
One of the monks, Dom Paul Bellot
, aged 31, was an architect. He designed and draughted plans for the new abbey, incorporating and extending Quarr Abbey House, some distance from the ruins of the medieval monastery. 300 workers from the Isle of Wight, accustomed to building only dwelling-houses, raised a building whose design and workmanship is admired by all who visit the Abbey. The building of the refectory and three sides of the cloister began in 1907 and was completed inside one year. The rest of the monks came from Appuldurcombe and, in April 1911, work began on the Abbey church which was quickly completed and consecrated on 12 October 1912. It was built with tall pointed towers of glowing Flemish brick, adding a touch of Byzantium to the skyline.
In 1922, after World War I
, the community of Solesmes returned to France. A small community of monks was left at Quarr which, from being a priory of Solesmes, became in 1937 an independent abbey, with English monks recruited to the community. The last French monk, Fr. Peter de Curzon, who arrived in 1945, died in 2006.
devotes much of his 2004 memoir
, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
, to his experiences at Quarr Abbey.
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
between the villages of Binstead
Binstead
Binstead is a village on the Isle of Wight. It is located in the northeast of the Island, two kilometres west of Ryde on the main road between Ryde and Newport.-Amenities:...
and Fishbourne
Fishbourne, Isle of Wight
for disambiguation.Fishbourne is a small village between Wootton and Ryde, on the Isle of Wight.The name "Fishbourne" might mean "stream of fish" or "fish spring."...
on the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
in southern England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The name is pronounced as "Kor" (rhyming with "for"). It belongs to the Order of St Benedict. The present imposing brick construction was completed in 1912. A community of about a dozen monks maintains the monastery's regular life and the attached farm. In the vicinity are a few remains of the original twelfth-century abbey, an archway, a delicate stone window, fragments of a wall and a barn incorporated into a farmhouse.
History
Cistercian monastery
Quarr Abbey was part of the Cistercian Order and was founded in 1132 by Baldwin de Redvers, 1st Earl of DevonBaldwin de Redvers, 1st Earl of Devon
Baldwin de Redvers, 1st Earl of Devon was the son of Richard de Redvers and his wife Adeline Peverel.He was one of the first to rebel against King Stephen, and was the only first rank magnate never to accept the new king. He seized Exeter, and was a pirate out of Carisbrooke, but he was driven out...
, fourth Lord of the Isle of Wight
Lord of the Isle of Wight
The Lord of the Isle of Wight is a title that began when William the Conqueror granted the Isle of Wight to William Fitz Osbern. This was a hereditary title....
.
The founder was buried in the Abbey in 1155 and his remains, along with those of a royal princess, Cecily of York
Cecily of York
Cecily of York, Viscountess Welles was an English Princess and the third, but eventual second surviving, daughter of Edward IV, King of England and his queen consort, née Lady Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers.-Birth and Family:Cecily was born in Westminster Palace...
(d. 1507), second daughter of King Edward IV of England
Edward IV of England
Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 until 3 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death. He was the first Yorkist King of England...
and godmother of Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, still lie on the site of the mediaeval monastery, as do other important personages. Arreton Manor
Arreton Manor
Arreton Manor is a manor house in Arreton, Isle of Wight, England. Its history is traced to 872 AD to the time of King Alfred the Great and his parents. Once owned by William the Conqueror, as mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086, in the 12th century it became part of Quarr Abbey and was used by...
was part of the abbey from the 12th century until 1525.
The name Quarr comes from 'quarry
Quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...
', because there used to be a stone quarry in the neighbourhood. The original title of the monastery was the Abbey of our Lady of the Quarry. Stone from the quarry was used in the Middle Ages for both ecclesiastical and military buildings, for example for parts of the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
.
This site became a valuable and productive property. Because of this, it was the tradition for the abbot to be appointed warden or lord of the island. The prevalence of piracy in the area led to the granting in 1340 of special permission to fortify the area against attack. A stone wall, sea gate and portcullis were constructed. The ruins of these defences are still visible.
Secular ownership
After the Dissolution of the MonasteriesDissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
in 1536, the land was acquired by a Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
merchant, George Mills who demolished most of the abbey. Its stone was used for fortifications at the nearby towns of Cowes and Yarmouth. One of the three abbey bells is preserved in the belfry of the nearby Anglican parish church, originally built by the monks of Quarr Abbey for their lay dependants. Salvaged stone was also used to build Quarr Abbey House
Quarr Abbey House
The Quarr Abbey House of the early 20th century was one of several fine houses constructed along the north coast of the Isle of Wight in southern England. It was built with stone from the ruins of a Norman abbey on the site...
.
The exile of Solesmes
A nineteenth-century French law banned religious orders except by special dispensation, though its application varied with changes of government. As a precaution, Abbot Paul Delatte (1848–1937) of the Benedictine Solesmes Abbey had sent a monk to England to look for a house to shelter the community. A crisis came in 1880, when congregations were ordered to apply for authorisation within three months. Although this was at first brutally enforced against men's communities, protests resulted in gradual abandonment of the measures. Congregations were reconstituted. On 1 July 1901, however, tolerance towards religious communities came to an end with the passing of a new law.The founder of Solesmes, Prosper Guéranger, had originally thought of England as a possible place of refuge should the community have to go into exile. Moreover, since 1896, at the invitation of the former Empress Eugénie, the Solesmes Benedictines had taken over as a priory the former Premonstratensian
Premonstratensian
The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines, or in Britain and Ireland as the White Canons , are a Catholic religious order of canons regular founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, who later became Archbishop of Magdeburg...
house of Farnborough Abbey, which sheltered the tomb of Napoleon III.
In this new emergency, several places were considered as a possible refuge. Farnborough was far too small. Other possibilities included the ancient Battle Abbey
Battle Abbey
Battle Abbey is a partially ruined abbey complex in the small town of Battle in East Sussex, England. The abbey was built on the scene of the Battle of Hastings and dedicated to St...
near Hastings
Hastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
on the Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
coast of England. The Solesmes monks were in urgent need of a home, but the transactions at Battle Abbey would have been lengthy and the expense beyond their limited means.
Appuldurcombe House
Finally, at the end of July, attention was drawn to a suitable 'large house on the Isle of Wight which seems to meet the requirements of the monks', Appuldurcombe HouseAppuldurcombe House
Appuldurcombe House is the shell of a large 18th-century baroque country house of the Worsley family. The house is situated near to Wroxall on the Isle of Wight....
near Wroxall
Wroxall, Isle of Wight
Wroxall is a village and civil parish in the central south of the Isle of Wight.It is close to Appuldurcombe House. The parish church is St. John's Church, Wroxall....
on the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
. The house was viewed and accepted, and a lease contract was signed on 19 August 1901. A former monastic site, the construction of the house had been begun in 1701 by Sir Robert Worsley on the site of a Tudor manor house and completed much later (1773) by Sir Richard Worsley
Richard Worsley
General Sir Richard Edward Worsley GCB OBE is a British Army General who achieved high office in the 1980s.-Military career:Educated at Radley College, Worsley was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade in 1942....
who, from 1787, also established there what was to become a well-known art collection. On the death of Sir Richard in 1805, the estate passed to his niece, who was married to the Second Baron and first Earl of Yarborough
Earl of Yarborough
Earl of Yarborough is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1837 for Charles Anderson-Pelham, 2nd Baron Yarborough. The Anderson-Pelham family descends from Francis Anderson of Manby, Lincolnshire. He married Mary, daughter of Charles Pelham of Brocklesby, Lincolnshire...
. The family connexion with the house ended in 1855, when the estate was sold off by her son, the Second Earl of Yarborough.
The monks wasted no time in beginning their transfer from Solesmes to the Isle of Wight and, on Saturday 21 September 1901, practically the entire community of Solesmes reached Appuldurcombe.
Already, by September 1904, the community at Appuldurcombe was considering that it might prove necessary to seek another home. They had been at Appuldurcombe for three years and the lease must have been renewed about this time for another four years. Nevertheless, they had begun to look around for another property, probably because they were already aware of the unreasonable attitude of the landlord, who refused to undertake any repairs, so that the community would have the alternative of continuing to renew the lease on a property which they would have to keep in repair themselves, or buying it outright in a state of disrepair.
New abbey on site of Quarr Abbey House
The lease on Appuldurcombe, initiated in 1901, had to be renewed, or terminated by 1 January 1908. At that stage, it was decided to acquire Quarr Abbey House and estate.The first monks arrived at Quarr Abbey House from Appuldurcombe on 25 June 1907 to prepare the grounds and the beginnings of a kitchen garden. They also put up fencing round the property, established a chicken farm, and planted an orchard.
One of the monks, Dom Paul Bellot
Paul Bellot
Paul Louis Denis Bellot was a French monk and modern architect.He became an architect in 1900 having studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1902 he became a monk of the Benedictines of Solesmes...
, aged 31, was an architect. He designed and draughted plans for the new abbey, incorporating and extending Quarr Abbey House, some distance from the ruins of the medieval monastery. 300 workers from the Isle of Wight, accustomed to building only dwelling-houses, raised a building whose design and workmanship is admired by all who visit the Abbey. The building of the refectory and three sides of the cloister began in 1907 and was completed inside one year. The rest of the monks came from Appuldurcombe and, in April 1911, work began on the Abbey church which was quickly completed and consecrated on 12 October 1912. It was built with tall pointed towers of glowing Flemish brick, adding a touch of Byzantium to the skyline.
In 1922, after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the community of Solesmes returned to France. A small community of monks was left at Quarr which, from being a priory of Solesmes, became in 1937 an independent abbey, with English monks recruited to the community. The last French monk, Fr. Peter de Curzon, who arrived in 1945, died in 2006.
Abbots
- Dom Marie-Gabriel TissotMarie-Gabriel TissotMarie-Gabriel Tissot, later to become the first Abbot of Quarr in modern times was born in France in 1886, and after studies in the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, in 1906 he entered the community of Solesmes Abbey, then living in exile at Appuldurcombe on the Isle of Wight, England...
, OSB, abbot 1937 - 1964 - Dom Aelred SillemAelred SillemAelred Sillem was second abbot of Quarr Abbey, on the Isle of Wight .Sillem was educated at Haileybury and Magdalen College, Oxford and received the habit at the Benedictine abbey of St Gregory, Downside, in 1929...
, OSB, abbot 1964 - 1992 - Dom Leo AveryLeo AveryLeo Avery, later to be the third Abbot of Quarr in modern times, was born 5 January 1938, in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, and raised in Maidstone, Kent, England. After studies in Aeronautical Engineering at Southampton University, England, he entered the novitiate at Quarr Abbey, on the nearby...
. OSB, abbot 1992 - 1996 - Dom Cuthbert JohnsonCuthbert JohnsonCuthbert Johnson is a British musician, liturgist and former Benedictine abbot. He was the fourth Abbot of Quarr Abbey, he was born in County Durham, England. After studying with the Christian Brothers and the White Fathers, he entered Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight and made monastic profession...
, OSB, abbot Aug 1996 - March 2008
In literature
Tony HendraTony Hendra
Tony Hendra is an English satirist and writer who has worked mostly in the United States. Educated at St Albans School and Cambridge University, he was a member of the Cambridge University Footlights revue in 1962, alongside John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor.-Career:In 1964 Hendra...
devotes much of his 2004 memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul
Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul is a memoir written by Tony Hendra, an English humorist and satirist. It was on the New York Times Best Seller list for many weeks.- Plot summary :When Hendra was 14, he had an affair with a married woman...
, to his experiences at Quarr Abbey.