Ampleforth’s History

“Ampleforth Lodge” was established in 1802, but the monastery of St Lawrence goes back long before that…

[Westminster] [exile] [return] [schools & parishes] [modern]

The monks of Westminster

Although the English Benedictines had been dissolved by Henry VIII in the 1530s, one solitary monastery was re-established in Westminster Abbey by the Catholic Queen, Mary Tudor, 20 years later. After only a few years, her half-sister Queen Elizabeth dissolved this monastery again. By 1607 only one of the Westminster monks was left alive – Fr Sigebert Buckley. [back to top]

 In exile in France

He professed a group of English monks in France, and so passed onto them the rights and privileges of the ancient English Benedictine Congregation. In 1615, these English monks took up residence in an abandoned collegiate church of St Lawrence at Dieulouard, near Nancy in north-east France. The penal laws against Catholics meant that monasteries and Catholic priests were illegal in England. Many of the monks, though, were given permission to leave their monasteries to work secretly as priests in England. One monk of this English monastery in France, Alban Roe, was executed in January 1642 and was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970.  [back to top]

The return to England

In 1792 the monks were expelled from France as part of the violence associated with the French Revolution. As luck would have it, about the same time, Fr Anselm Bolton had taken up residence in a lodge at Ampleforth. He had been the chaplain of Lady Anne Fairfax at Gilling Castle, just two miles away (now the site of our Junior School). She had built the lodge for him just before she died, but in 1802 Fr Anselm handed the house over to his brethren to be their new monastery. In the following year (1803) the new monastery school was opened.  [back to top]

Schools and parishes

The school had been an important feature of life in France: English Catholics had sent their boys to France to be educated during penal times, and many of these boys had become monks and priests. This close relationship was to continue when the monks returned to England.

During the next century the monks continued to work both in the college (which then had about 70 boys), and on the missions. They worked particularly in the new town parishes of the industrial revolution: South Wales, Liverpool and Warrington, the Preston area and in Cumbria.  [back to top]

Modern Ampleforth

In 1900 the major monastic houses became independent Abbeys. Although the work on the parishes was kept up (and still is), community life under the Rule and an abbot became the norm again.

At Ampleforth the community also expanded its commitment to the school. When he was elected in 1924, Abbot Matthews appointed Fr Paul Nevill to succeed him as headmaster: under these two men the school grew.

The community continues to be involved in both its parishes and its schools, as well as in hospitality and more lately in adult catechesis too. [back to top]

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