Summary
Monastery of St Gregory the Great at Downside Abbey, including the principal monastic (west) wing, by Dunn and Hansom (1873-1876) and its attached lavatory range, Petre (south) cloister (1873-1876 by Dunn and Hansom) and Pollen (east) wing, built in 1970-1975 over the previously unfinished late-C19 Weld cloister.
Reasons for Designation
The monastery of St Gregory the Great at Downside Abbey, built in phases between 1873-1876 and 1970-1975, including the Petre Cloister and the Weld Cloister and range above, is listed at Grade II*, for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* the earlier monastic wing, to the west side, is in an accomplished Collegiate High Victorian Gothic style, built to designs by Dunn and Hansom, and includes the dramatic and highly-detailed west cloister and its termination in the fine Petre stair;
* the interior demonstrates good quality in its style and detailing, and shows the clear hierarchy of spaces through the building;
* the 1970s Pollen wing, which completed the claustral ranges, is an unashamedly modernist Brutalist structure which nevertheless respects and complements the earlier work it adjoins, and is of clear quality in architectural style and execution.
Historic interest:
* 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.
Group value:
* the abbey church, monastic buildings and the associated school form 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
Monastery of St Gregory the Great at Downside Abbey, including the principal monastic (west) wing, by Dunn and Hansom (1873-1876) and its attached sanitary range, Petre (south) cloister (1873-1876 by Dunn and Hansom) and Pollen (east) wing, built in 1970-1975 over the previously unfinished late-C19 Weld cloister.
MONASTIC RANGE AND WEST CLOISTER, built in Collegiate High Victorian Gothic style in 1873-1876, to designs by Dunn and Hansom, extended in 1899.
MATERIALS: Bath stone ashlar, with tile roofs.
PLAN: the double-depth main range runs north-south, forming the western enclosure of the cloister garth. The later sanitary range stands as an east-west extension running from its north-west corner, alongside the western end of the nave of the abbey church. There are stair towers at the north and south ends.
EXTERIOR: the principal elevation is to the west. This comprises three storeys and attics, the two upper storeys added to the 1870s building in two phases in 1892 and 1899. The range is of seven bays, that to the left breaking forward as a projecting gabled with a gable to the return; then five bays to the main range, divided by buttresses with offsets, and a central entrance bay which is a half-projecting, octagonal tower with a conical roof. To the right is a square tower of four full storeys, with battlemented parapets. The windows are mainly of two narrow lights with trefoil heads, divided by a stone mullion. The ground-floor windows also have transoms, and are arranged as plate tracery, with carved ornament to their heads, set under a continuous hood mould. There are also transoms to the windows of the entrance tower, and the top floor of the main tower to the right. The base of the tower has a central canted bay window. All of the gables have moulded stone verges and apex crosses. Wide, raking dormers are set between the gables of the attic storey. The south return of the tower is similar to the main elevation, with the addition of a broad, buttressed external stack with tall, clustered chimneys, and is adjoined by a wide, canted stair bay with trefoil-headed windows and carved spandrels. A band of repeating Tudor flower ornament marks the original parapet, before the tower was raised to extend the upper floors. The inner, east front has the cloister to its ground floor, of eight bays divided by buttresses with offsets, between the tower to the left and a smaller, polygonal tower for a winder stair to the right (north) end of the cloister. The tower has the canted principal stair tower to its left bay, a ground-floor entrance doorway to the centre and the final window bay of the cloister to the right. This bay breaks up above the height of the flanking bays as a battlemented tower. Its first-floor window is of three lights which step upwards to reflect the position of the secondary stair added to give access to the two upper floors as part of the additions made in 1892-1899. The central eight window bays have four gables above, mirroring those on the west elevation, and similar fenestration.
INTERIOR: the ground floor is double-depth, with rooms ranged off the western side of the west cloister. The cloister has a rib vaulted roof with extensive carved ornament, springing from clustered piers with carved foliate capitals and moulded bases. The roof has banded stone infill, and the walls are ashlar. The window bays have timber window seats installed. The floor is laid with polychrome tile in geometric patterns. The doorways to each of the rooms have shouldered openings with foliate carving to the shoulders; the doors have geometric panelling. At the western end is a broad, stone stair in Baronial style, with extensive moulded, pierced and carved decoration, leading down to the adjoining Petre (south) cloister. At the north end is a second stair, within the sanitary wing added in 1899. This is a wide, timber dog-leg stair with barley-twist balusters and heavy, square-section newels with Gothic details, rising through all floors of the building. Opposite is a stone newel stair in a narrow external stair turret, which served as the secondary stair until the sanitary wing was constructed. The ground-floor rooms include the chapter room, which has an elaborate Gothic chimneypiece with a carved seated figure of St Benedict and angels to the sloping hood. The walls have half panelling, and there are carved foliate corbels carrying the roof beams. Similar carved ornament adorns the window reveals. The remaining ground-floor rooms have more modest decorative schemes, with different moulded stone fireplaces in each location, with Gothic details, and panelling of simplified design. The calefactory has a dividing wall with fireplace to one side, flanked by pointed-arched openings. The upper floors have cells ranged to either side of a central corridor. The first-floor corridor has its ceiling with applied timber ribs carried on diaphragm arches. The cells are simple, some with modest stone fireplaces. The first floor has a small chapel at its centre, set over the entrance porch; this has a raised dais set in the canted bay, with a compartmental ceiling of moulded ribs. Towards the southern end, a further stair gives access to the later second and third floors; this is a similar but rather simpler version of the stair in the sanitary range. The corridors in the upper floors have flat ceilings and moulded beams, with dado rail. The cells in the 1892 addition have windows bringing borrowed light to the corridor, absent from the 1899 section. From the third-floor corridor, a cast-iron spiral staircase gives access to the roof of the tower. The interior of the sanitary range includes elaborate cast iron radiators and half panelling. The ground-floor lavatories have timber stalls and a decorative cast-iron stand for wash basins. Lavatories and bathrooms in the upper floors have modern fittings.
PETRE CLOISTER, built in the 1870s, also by Dunn and Hansom.
MATERIALS: Bath stone ashlar.
PLAN: a single-depth range running east-west between the south stair of the main monastery range and the south end of the south end of the Weld (east) cloister.
EXTERIOR: an eleven-bay, single storey range, its flat roof level with the cloister garth above. The bays are separated by coped buttresses, each with an angel figure above. Each bay has a five-light Perpendicular window with elaborately carved spandrels including heraldic devices. Above this runs a continuous ornamented frieze and an arcaded parapet. The westernmost bay has a doorway with a shouldered-arched opening and carved tympanum within a hood mould.
INTERIOR: the cloister adjoins the monastic range at the foot of the south-west stair in the west cloister, with a glazed partition between the two. At the western end, a sculpted figure group depicting the Martyrdom of St Thomas of Canterbury is set within a niche in the wall, with a hood mould running over it, and continuing over all the windows along the cloister. The flat roof has a moulded timber cornice and applied ribs, and is carried on elaborately moulded beams with arch braces springing from wall posts.
EAST WING of the monastery, built in 1970-1975, by Francis Pollen of Brett and Pollen.
MATERIALS: a concrete-framed building with limestone ashlar cladding, with exposed structural concrete elements, some with bush-hammered surface treatment.
PLAN: the east wing is built upon the partially-subterranean Weld Cloister, which links the school and the Abbey Church, orientated north-south. It was built to provide a school refectory on the ground floor, a monk’s refectory on the first floor, and guest rooms above, along with administrative accommodation and a new entrance to the Abbey Church. A third floor, planned to provide additional accommodation, was not built.
EXTERIOR: the east wing has two elevations: the east is primary, facing the road into the abbey grounds; the west forms the east side of the cloister garth. Both elevations are based on a series of repeating bays. On the ground and first floors of the east elevation, bays are articulated by chamfered vertical uprights in the manner of pilasters of the giant order. On the ground floor, the school refectory has wide windows in metal frames with narrow glazing bars. The recessed, angled sill and apron are formed of a bush-hammered concrete panel. Above, the monks’ refectory has full-height glazing filling the T-shaped openings, bush-hammered panels indicate the floor plate. The second floor is jettied: the ends of the transverse beams project at each bay division and support a deep concrete bressumer with triangular projections. Each projection is glazed with a two-sided casement window. The elevation terminates in a parapet, following the angled line of the second floor. The seventh bay contains the entrance to the building through double doors on the ground floor; these are timber with narrow vertical lights. The elevated covered way linking with the library adjoins the elevation above the entrance, and above that, there is a large window with vertical glazing bars forming narrow lights. At the junction with the school, to the left, the left the elevation steps back and the ashlar is carefully blended with the earlier elevation, containing small trefoil windows. At the junction with the abbey church, the elevation steps back and has a wide opening on the ground floor and narrow windows to each floor above.
On the west elevation a steep cutting from the higher ground level of the quadrangle reveals the elevation of the Weld Cloister; a series of bays with pointed arched recesses containing paired trefoil lancets. Pollen’s elevation extends flush above, continuing the bay arrangement of the earlier building. On the first floor, wide windows light the corridor within. A concrete canopy above matches the bressumer on the east elevation, with a triangular projection above each window. The second floor is recessed, and reflects its east-facing equivalent, with a pointed window to each bay.
INTERIOR: interiors are characterised by exposed materials expressing the structure, minimally adorned and carefully finished. Buff brick is used throughout, laid in stretcher bond with flush pointing, and ceilings have deep transverse beams of smooth concrete, resting on massive concrete padstones. Between the beams, ceilings are generally match-boarded, and floors quarry tiled.
The main stair is an open well of cantilevered concrete steps between concrete landings. It has a metal handrail with widely-spaced balusters and rails.
Another stair rises from the Weld cloister up to the north cloister and abbey church. This broad passage has match-boarded ceilings and is top lit from narrow transverse openings. The C19 pointed arch of the Weld cloister is echoed at the top of the stair in brick. Similarly detailed, corridors have glass globe wall light fittings and timber benches.
Beyond the routes of circulation, the monks’ refectory is the principal interior space. The room is lit along one wall by full-height windows which step outward and upward at the top, filling the space between the beams and bressumer. Between the beams, the ceiling is canted downwards along the central axis, reflecting the upward-sloping angle of the window arches. Walls have a match-boarded dado, and there are two rows of white-glazed pendant light fittings. On the second floor, offices and guest rooms have plastered walls and simple joinery.
