Prinknash Abbey Pious Dreams
Transcript of Prinknash Abbey Pious Dreams
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Prinknash Abbey – Pious Dreams
by Richard Barton
Using contemporary publicity material and appeal brochures to explore the various plans for
an enormous Benedictine Monastery at Prinknash Park, Gloucestershire.
Alan Brooks in ‘Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds’ reminds us that after abbatial status was
achieved for Prinknash in 1937, ‘Abbot Wilfred Upson worked with H.S. Goodhart-Rendel on
grandiose plans for a new monastery, to be built by the monks themselves using traditional
load-bearing walls and mass concrete vaults. The design was based on French Romanesque
or Byzantine sources, with central lantern crossing tower above the high altar dividing nave
and monks’ choir. Only the lower crypt at the east end was partially completed when
Goodhart-Rendel died in 1959. Upson’s successor, Abbot Dyfrig Rushton, consulted Oliver Hill
and Edward Maufe in the hope of completing the design more economically, but finally
returned to Goodhart-Rendel’s former partner, F.G. Broadbent (Broadbent, Hastings, Reid &
Todd) to provide the completely modified design built in 1968-72. The abbey church remains
unbuilt.’
Broadbent’s unrealised design showing the planned church
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‘On 3rd May 1939 the foundation stone was laid by His Eminence Cardinal Hinsley, Archbishop
of Westminster in the presence of the Apostolic Delegate, and a large gathering of several
thousand Catholics and others, including many Bishops, Abbots and Clergy.’
However, the Second World War brought building work to a close.
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1956: The building project is re-launched and the publicity material shows even more lavish
plans from H.S. Goodhart-Rendel
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15th May 1959
The Abbey Church of Our Lady and St Peter Prinknash situated in the lower crypt was
consecrated by the Bishop of Clifton on 3rd May 1972.
Rite of consecration:
‘The church is dedicated in honour of Our Lady and St Peter, and the relics pf St John
Southworth, St Pius X and St Vincent Ferrer will be sealed into the altars. These relics remind
us that our worship on earth is always united to the worship which Christ and his saints give
to the Father in heaven.
The people gather together in a suitable place some distance from the church. The Bishop will
come down the drive in procession towards them. The procession will include the
concelebrants, the Prinknash community, other clergy and the choir of Farnborough Abbey,
Hampshire, for whose help with singing we are very grateful. The relics also are carried in the
procession.