Summary
Abbey church and minor basilica of St Gregory the Great and the north cloister of the monastery, designed by the architectural practice Dunn and Hansom. It was built between 1879 and 1938, with the later phases of work by architects Thomas Garner, Frederick Walters, and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott; it remains unfinished to the west end. In the C13 French-Gothic style, with later phases in the Early-English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles. Stained glass by Hardman and Co; Lavers, Barraud and Westlake; and Ninian Comper. Architectural carving and fixtures and fittings by Alfred B Wall of Cheltenham, Ninian Comper, Ferdinand Stuflesser, and Edward Carter Preston among others.
Reasons for Designation
The Abbey church and minor basilica of St Gregory the Great and the north cloister, built between 1873 and 1938, is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* designed by a number of nationally-significant architects of the period, including Dunn and Hansom, Thomas Garner, Frederick Walters and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott;
* for the overall sophistication of the design with its distinct phases by each architect combining harmoniously in a building that is regarded as a masterpiece of the Gothic Revival style for the Catholic church;
* for the exceptional artistic quality of fixtures and fittings, which include, amongst numerous furnishings of artistic significance, Ninian Comper’s fitting out of the Lady Chapel, organ screen by Ferdinand Stuflesser, and Scott’s choir stalls and monument to Cardinal Gasquet by Edward Carter Preston.
Historic interest:
* as part of the development of Downside Abbey, established by a Benedictine congregation in the early C19, who created an architectural ensemble of the highest order, employing the most prominent Roman Catholic architects of the period;
* the church is one of four minor basilicas in England, so designated by the Pope for reasons of ‘architectural beauty, historical significance, [and] liturgical renown . .’.
Group value:
* a highly-significant group of interconnected and functionally-related buildings, of which several are listed at the highest grades.
History
The Downside Estate was acquired in 1814 by a congregation of Benedictine monks compelled to leave their home in Douai, France, at the end of the C18. The monks initially settled in Acton Burnell, Shropshire, and from there, sought a base to establish a new monastery and school. Building began at Downside in the 1820s when the old manor house, Mount Pleasant, was adapted and extended with new school buildings erected in a number of phases throughout the C19 and C20. The monastic buildings and abbey church followed from the 1870s and into the C20.
The existing monastic buildings of Downside Abbey were begun in 1873, and first occupied in 1876. Prior to this, the monks had been accommodated in the earlier buildings elsewhere on the site, which, after the completion of the present monastic ranges, became part of Downside School. The architects were Edward Joseph Hansom (1842-1900) and his partner, Archibald Dunn (1832-1917) of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. EJ Hansom, from a line of Catholic architects, had been educated at Downside, and his father, Charles Francis Hansom (1817-1888) had been engaged to draw up plans for a full scheme of buildings for the school and monastery at Downside. Although his full scheme was not implemented, CF Hansom contributed a number of smaller developments to the site in the 1850s. EJ Hansom had begun his working life with Alfred Waterhouse, and then in partnership with his father, with whom he created some additional ancillary buildings at Downside. Hansom later entered a partnership with Dunn, who had been another of his father’s pupils, and had recently undertaken other commissions for Catholic communities.
Dunn and Hansom were commissioned in 1872 to design a comprehensive scheme for the school and monastery, which would be more modest and therefore more affordable than earlier, abandoned schemes by AWN Pugin and CF Hansom. This included east and west cloister ranges, with accommodation for the monks, and a lower south cloister, which, due to the fall of the ground from north to south, would be subterranean on the north side. For the monastic community, the Hon Reverend William Petre (resident at Downside between 1874 and 1877), collaborated with the architects in devising the scheme. The monastery, then comprising the west range and cloister and the south cloister – named in honour of Reverend Petre – were begun in 1873, and completed about three years later. The work was carried out by Joseph Blackwell of Bath. The west range had a ground-floor cloister with communal rooms, including the chapter house, calefactory [warming room] and a temporary library ranged off the cloister, and cells above. An elaborate stone stair in a tower gave access from the lower south (Petre) cloister to the first-floor cells. As the monastery expanded, in 1899, the west range was extended by the addition of a short range at its north end, to house sanitary facilities, on a site previously intended for a large library wing. The west range was also raised in height, adding two further storeys of cells, in two phases, completed by 1892 and 1900. Around the same time, an east cloister was begun, known as the Weld cloister; this was always planned, but only completed at lower ground floor level, and due to the ground falling to the south of the abbey church, was mainly subterranean. Designs for heraldic glass in the Weld cloister were drawn up by Ninian Comper in about 1896. The cloister was altered in around 1950.
The Pollen wing, forming the upper floors of the east cloister, was designed as an ancillary element of the commission for the adjacent monastic library, and built immediately after it, in 1970-1975. Its main purpose was an extension of the monastery to provide cells and a refectory for the monastic community. The expansion reflected the optimism of Vatican II (of which Abbot Christopher Butler, who was as Abbot President a prolific contributor to the Council's sessions, was the abbot who commissioned both the Library and East Wing projects). The architect was Francis Pollen (1926-1987), who was educated at Downside, trained at Cambridge and the Architectural Association. He was initially heavily influenced by the work of Edwin Lutyens, whose son he was at school with, and who remodelled Lambay Castle, Dublin Bay, for his grandparents. He adopted the principles of the New Brutalism in the late 1950s, preferring heavy brick and concrete construction to what Alan Powers describes as the 'physical shallowness' of much contemporary modernism. Pollen is best-known for his church work, with the Abbey Church of Our Lady Help of Christians, Worth, Mid Sussex, considered by some his masterpiece (1964-1989, Grade II). The Pollen wing at Downside replaced a temporary structure known as the White House, built on a deck above the unfinished Weld cloister, and included refectories for the monks and the school, guest rooms and offices. A third floor was planned, but never executed. The completion of the dedicated library building in 1970 enabled the monastic library to be removed from the several rooms it occupied on the ground floor of the monastic wing. The buildings have remained in use as a monastery since their completion. The Pollen wing ceased to be used as part of the monastic enclosure in March 2022. The Pollen library continues to be used as the facility for the Archives and Library of the Community of Saint Gregory the Great. The Pollen wing houses the staff of Downside Abbey General Trust. (All uses current as of February 2024).
Downside Abbey was the subject of investigation by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, resulting in a case study report (2018) into the abuse of pupils at Downside School since the 1960s.
The community of monks which had been resident at Downside Abbey left in 2022, concluding the site’s connection with the Benedictine order.
Details
Abbey church and minor basilica of St Gregory the Great and the north cloister of the monastery, designed by the architectural practice Dunn and Hansom. It was built between 1879 and 1938, with the later phases of work by architects Thomas Garner, Frederick Walters, and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott; it remains unfinished to the west end. In the C13 French-Gothic style, with later phases in the Early-English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles. Stained glass by Hardman and Co; Lavers, Barraud, & Westlake; and Ninian Comper. Architectural carving and fixtures and fittings by Alfred B Wall of Cheltenham, Ninian Comper, Ferdinand Stuflesser, and Edward Carter Preston among others.
MATERIALS: built of local lias stone and faced with Bath-stone ashlar. The roof is covered with plain clay tiles; the east-end chapels are roofed in copper sheeting. The principal floors are paved in stone. One, two, three, and four-light windows with varied tracery.
PLAN: a cruciform and aisled planform comprising the eight-bay nave with passage aisles, the crossing, north and south transepts, seven-bay choir, ambulatory, radiating chapels and a crypt beneath the east end. The south transept is screened from the body of the church and forms part of the north cloister of the monastery with the organ and the galleried chapels to the west and east, above. To the south of the transept is the tower. To the north is the sacristy.
EXTERIOR: the ‘temporary’ west front is built of coursed lias stone, in a simplified Perpendicular style, with three, tall lancet windows above a relieving Romanesque arch to the west door. There is a two-light window to the gable. The elevation is framed by pilasters with offsets, and to either side are lean-to aisles, with a domestic-scale lean-to porch to the north aisle.
The Perpendicular-style south tower rises to a height of 51m. The ordered south door is framed by blind arcading with gabled and crocketed heads, and a decorated tympanum with niches containing three statues carved by RL Boulton and Sons of Cheltenham. Above are a pair of narrow lancet windows and a high circular window with curvilinear tracery. The lower stage of the tower is framed by set-back buttresses with offsets and gabled tops. The upper stage narrows as it rises through its three tiers of Y-tracery belfry windows, with the corners of the tower transitioning from octagonal shafts, through castellated towers, to crocketed pinnacles. To either side of the tower is the north cloister of the monastery, with the gallery chapels to the abbey above, and a plain parapet. The bays, three to the left and five to the right, are articulated by pilasters that match those to the tower. Behind and above are the nave, with three-light clerestory windows divided by buttresses with offsets and a parapet above, and the choir which has tall, clerestory windows with a dividing transom, separated by flying buttresses. The parapet to the choir has an elongated trefoil design that continues to the east and north elevations.
The east end of the choir is framed by towers with niches containing statues, blind arcading and pinnacled tops. They are connected by the parapet with a statue to the centre. The set-back gable above has a transomed six-light window. The transomed east window, largely concealed by the east-end chapels, comprises a central three-light window with pointed arch and a lancet window to either side. The two chapels to the south-east corner have square ends, large corner buttresses with offsets, and parapets with two rows of quatrefoils. The windows are in the Perpendicular style, as opposed to the French-Gothic style windows of the other chapels. The remaining east-end chapels have polygonal ends. The next chapel has a parapet with blind arcading with trefoil heads. The Lady Chapel has windows divided by buttresses with offsets and cusped gables; single-light windows with trefoil heads light the crypt beneath. To the north-east of the Lady Chapel is an octagonal stair turret and two further polygonal chapels with plain parapets.
The adjacent sacristy has a crenellated parapet with a four-light east window above a square projection, and a five-bay north elevation with three-light windows above lean-to projections. The bays are divided by buttresses with offsets.
The north transept is of two bays with buttresses with offsets, and lean-to bays to either side. Its north elevation includes a large wheel window above a band of blind trefoil-headed arcading. The north aisle has a plain parapet and dividing buttresses with offsets.
INTERIOR: throughout is a moulded, rib-vaulted ceiling in the C13 French-Gothic style, with stone infill. The unfinished eight-bay nave is in the Perpendicular style with a pointed-arch arcade, with the triforium and clerestory above, and north and south aisles. The clustered arcade piers are composed of four octagonal shafts with moulded bases and capitals. Between the arcade bays are angel corbels supporting clustered shafts with moulded capitals from which the ceiling ribs spring. The triforium gallery has paired, plate-tracery openings with ogee arches and quatrefoils, and above are three-light, traceried clerestory windows. The nave has a parquet floor with stone paving to the aisles. At the east end of the north aisle is the Chapel of St Lawrence, designed by Dunn and Hansom and refitted by Walters in 1898, with an altar with a Perpendicular screen behind and a relic cupboard painted by Nathaniel Westlake.
The crossing is defined by tall clustered shafts with foliate capitals that terminate above the triforium gallery; this continues around the sides of the north and south transepts. To the north transept the galleries are connected by a balustraded gallery with two rows of pierced quatrefoils supported on a Lombard-style frieze with corbels carved with figures. The north transept, originally functioning as the sanctuary and now the Chapel of St Oliver Plunkett, has an elaborately-carved stone altar designed in 1882 by Dunn and Hansom and carved by Wall. On tall stone columns is a gilded oak reliquary of St Oliver Plunkett. The south transept is screened from the body of the church by a decorative stone wall with a central, pointed-arch doorway to the north cloister and flanking niches. Above is a Gothic, wood-carved organ screen of repeated vertical openings designed by Scott in 1931 and carved by Ferdinand Stuflesser.
The choir is in the Early-English style with a square east end pierced with three, tall, pointed-arch openings with statues beneath crocketed canopies to the dividing piers. The east window has stained glass designed by Comper. The pointed-arch north and south arcades have clustered piers with foliate capitals. Angel corbels between the arcade bays support the clustered shafts that rise through the tall clerestory bays (the triforium is not continued to the choir). The oak choir stalls, designed by Scott in 1931-1932 and based on the late-C14 choir stalls at Chester Cathedral, are carved by Stuflesser. The front two rows of stalls, also carved by Stuflesser, were added in 1951.
The north choir aisle has three square chapels: Holy Angels, St Placid, and Seven Sorrows, all by Dunn and Hansom, each with stained-glass windows by Hardman & Co., and an early-C20 parclose screen by FC Eden. The Chapel of the Holy Angels has a small Flemish triptych of about 1540. The Chapel of St Placid contains an altar and reredos of 1915-1916 with painted panels of six saints by Dame Catherine Weeks, coloured and gilded by Geoffrey Webb who also designed the archangels above. The Chapel of the Seven Sorrows has a reredos of 1892 by Dunn and Hansom and carved by Wall; it was recoloured and gilded by John Tolhurst in 1955. The central crucifixion panel is probably from Regensburg, Germany and dates from about 1480-90. To the east is the Tudor-arched entrance to the sacristy. The Chapel of St Sebastian was designed by Garner and refitted by Comper in 1929 to include a reredos with an alabaster figure of St Sebastian and a Perpendicular stone screen; the west bay of the screen was completed by Gilbert Sullivan in 1972. To the east is a second Tudor-arched entrance to the sacristy with an oriel window above, and the Chapel of St Sylvia, designed by Walters. The polygonal chapels of St Joseph and St Vedast are to the north-east corner of the ambulatory and both have stained-glass windows by Hardman and Co.
The Lady Chapel by Dunn and Hansom projects to the east, in-line with the choir. It has a polygonal east end and nine stained-glass traceried windows by Comper. The three in the apse fitted in 1899-1911; the rest 1919-1927. To the north and south walls are blind arcading with trefoil heads. The fixtures and fittings by Comper include an English-style altar with alabaster and gilt reredos; a gilded screen with four gilded relic chests and a central cross; a square Tester of 1912 with the Coronation of the Virgin depicted on the underside; and Spanish-inspired wrought-iron entrance gates to either side of a painted and gilded limewood statue of the Virgin. To the south is the Chapel of the Sacred Heart which contains decorated ceramic reliefs of 1954-1956 by Adam Kossowski and three stained-glass windows by Comper. To the south-east corner are the Chapels of St Benedict and St Isidore, both with stained-glass windows by Lavers, Barraud and Westlake. The Chapel of St Benedict has a triptych reredos designed by Walters and painted by Westlake and a parclose screen also by Walters. The Chapel of St Isidore has a stone-carved reredos designed by Walters and a marble pavement designed by Garner and made by Farmer and Brindley. In the south choir aisle is the tomb to Cardinal Gasquet, designed by Scott as a recumbent effigy with his head held by an angel and at his feet the figure of History. It is sculpted of grey Palombino marble by Edward Carter Preston and covered by a carved, painted and gilded pine canopy.
The outer wall of the south choir aisle divides the abbey from the north cloister and includes a limewood sculpture of the Virgin and Child attributed to Nicolaus Gerhaert of Leiden of about 1470. A stone vaulted staircase designed by Garner leads to the gallery chapels above. These have rib-vaulted ceilings, parquet and tiled floors, and stone balustrading to their north wall.
The sacristy, accessed from the north choir aisle, has a three-room plan, parquet flooring and timber-panelled ceilings. The decoratively carved oak fixtures and fittings are designed by Walters, possibly executed by the De Wispelaere workshop in Bruges. They include an altar and triptych reredos at the east end, a bank of back-to-back vestment benches with drawers, each associated with a particular chapel, and pairs of fitted cupboards to the arcaded side walls. Between the bays are carved coats of arms and above a decorative cornice are the clerestory windows. There are also elaborately stone-carved piscinas, the one to the west end has a tap and carved canopy.
NORTH CLOISTER: this has a rib-vaulted ceiling with banded-stone infill. The ribs and the piers beneath have carved ornament, and the piers have carved foliate capitals and moulded bases. The window bays are within recessed pointed arches, and the floor is laid with polychrome tiles laid in geometric patterns.
