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Downside Abbey Church
is dedicated to Saint Gregory the Great; it is a
Minor Basilica. It is also the largest of the Neo-Gothic
style churches built in this country after the Reformation,
and was described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as "the
most splendid demonstration of the renaissance of
Roman Catholicism in England. If ever there was an
excuse for building in period forms in the twentieth
century, it is here".
The church was built in
three stages, and under the direction of different
architects, as money became available: the Transept
or Crossing of the Church, by Dunn and Hansom, dates
from 1882. The Choir is by Thomas Garner and was
opened in 1905. The Nave, by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott
dates from 1925.
Despite the seemingly
haphazard manner of construction, the result is a
pleasing whole. Indeed, the overall construction,
already envisaged at the outset by Cardinal Gasquet
when he was Prior of the community, resembles that
of the greater Gothic churches in the Middle Ages,
which were also the product of the imagination of
succeeding generations of builders. |
The Church Tower dominates
the monastery and the surrounding countryside. Completed
in 1938, it is 166 feet (55m) and the second highest
Church Tower in Somerset. It contains a single bell,
named Great Bede in memory of Dom Bede Vaughan, who
became Archbishop of Sydney. She came to us in 1903
from Beverley Minster. Its note is G bourdon.
The church provides a
place of worship for the pupils of our School as
well as other visitors, but its primary purpose is
for monastic prayer. The monks spend about 2 1⁄2
hours here every day together in prayer. The Church
is also a place of private prayer, and it is open
during the day for anyone ‘just to go in and pray’
as St Benedict wanted. We try hard to keep the church
as a place of prayer, a shrine of the abiding presence
of God among his people.
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