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Prinknash Abbey


September 2014

Prinknash Abbey is a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery in the Vale of Gloucester in the Diocese of Clifton, near the village of Cranham.

For nearly 900 years the land known as Prinknash has been associated with Benedictine monks. In 1096 the Giffard family, who had come to England with William the Conqueror, made a gift of the land to Serlo, Abbot of St. Peter's, Gloucester. A large part of the present building was built during the abbacy of William Parker, the last Abbot of Gloucester, around the year 1520.

It remained in the abbey's hands until the suppression of the monasteries in 1539 when it was rented from the Crown by Sir Anthony Kingston who was to provide 40 deer annually to King Henry VIII, who used the House as a hunting lodge. Prinknash Park continued to be used as a home for the gentry and nobility of Gloucestershire during the next few centuries and each generation left its mark on the property.

On 1 August 1928 a Deed of Covenant was made out by the twentieth Earl of Rothes, the grandson of Thomas Dyer Edwards, a Catholic convert, whose wish was that Prinknash should be given to the Benedictine monks of Caldey Island. These monks had converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1913 under the leadership of Abbot Ælred Carlyle, although he left monastic life in 1921 to work as a missionary priest in Vancouver.

Caldey Island was eventually sold to the Cistercian monks and on 26 October 1928 six Benedictine monks arrived from Caldey to convert the house at Prinknash into a monastery. The rest soon followed and after some years of poverty they managed to purchase all the land around the house to make Prinknash as it is today. Fr. Wilfrid Upson, who had been appointed Prior after Carlyle's departure, was elected the first Abbot of Prinknash in 1937. The bones of Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury, are kept at Prinknash.

The monks moved into the new abbey in 1972 and the old abbey was converted into a retreat and conference centre, known as "St Peter's Grange", after being re-roofed and furnished. In 2008, on the feast day of Ss Peter and Paul (30 June), the community moved from the 1972 building back to St Peter's Grange and the new abbey was sold for conversion into luxury apartments.

Copyright © 2015 Stray Off The Path
  • Home
  • Asylums & Hospitals
    • Barrow Gurney Hospital
    • Brecon and Radnor Asylum - Talgarth
    • Cane Hill Asylum
    • Frenchay Hospital
    • Frenchay Hospital Mortuary
    • High Royds Asylum
    • Severalls Mental Hospital
    • Standish Hospital
    • St Cadoc's Hospital
    • St Clements Psychiatric Hospital - East London
    • Vagrant Cells - Melton Mowbray
  • High Stuff
    • Aldgate Tower Crane - London
    • Bayscape Tower Crane - Cardiff
    • Canons Marsh Crane - Bristol
    • Froomsgate House - Bristol
    • Newport Transporter Bridge
    • No. 3 Gasometer - Bath
    • No. 7 Gas Holder - Battersea
    • Simplyhealth Offices Crane - Bristol
    • Tees Transporter Bridge
    • The Forth Bridge
    • Warrington Transporter Bridge
  • Industrial
    • A Bond Tobacco Warehouse
    • Battersea Power Station
    • Celuan Wool Mill - Talybont
    • Coryton Refinery Power Station
    • CWM Coke Works
    • Ford Grain Silo - Avonmouth
    • Gloster Aircraft Company - Bentham Works
    • Granary No. 5 - Avonmouth
    • Healings Mill - Tewkesbury
    • Intier Automotive - Bristol
    • Lafarge Cement Works - Westbury
    • Leri Tweed Mill - Talybont
    • Longfords Mill - Stroud
    • Lostock Power Station
    • Mckechnie Brass - Aldridge
    • Morlands Tannery - Glastonbury
    • NGTE Pyestock
    • NT Frost Electroplating
    • Penallta Colliery
    • Pine End Works
    • Sharpness Grain Silo
    • Spillers Millennium Mills
    • Spillers Silo - Avonmouth
    • Spondon H Power Station
    • Tone Mills
    • Tower Colliery
    • Vencel Resil
    • Wansbrough Paper Mill
    • Welton Bibby and Baron - Midsomer Norton
  • Leisure
    • Birmingham Central Library
    • Bristol Ice Rink
    • Bristol North Baths
    • Odeon Cinema - Portsmouth
    • Oriental City
    • The Broadway Cinema - Bristol
    • The Palladium Cinema - Midsomer Norton
  • Military
    • Avro Shackleton MR3
    • Bletchley Park - G Block
    • Farleigh Down Tunnel
    • Hallen ROC Post
    • RAF Greenham Common (GAMA)
    • Royal Military Academy Woolwich
    • Wentworth D-Day Control Bunker
  • Underground
    • Bethel Quarry
    • Coulsdon Deep Shelter
    • Dreadnaught (Malago Stormwater Interceptor)
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    • Kingsway Telephone Exchange
    • Oslo Nuclear Fallout Shelters
  • Other
    • Abandoned Farmhouse - Bristol
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    • Prinknash Abbey
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