Bar Convent
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The Convent of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin at Micklegate Bar, York, better known as The Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre, is the oldest surviving
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...
in England, established in 1686. The
laws of England English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures. Principal elements of English law Although the common law has, historically, be ...
at this time prohibited the foundation of Catholic convents and as a result of this, the convent was both established and operated in secret.
Frances Bedingfeld Frances Bedingfeld, I.B.V.M. (1616–1704) led the first foundation in England of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, better known as the Sisters of Loreto, which had been founded by the Venerable Mary Ward. In 1677, Bedingfeld founded Bar ...
, a member of the
Sisters of Loreto The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose members are commonly known as the Loreto Sisters, is a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women dedicated to education founded in Saint-Omer by an Englishwoman, Mary Ward, in 1609. The cong ...
(also known as the
IBVM The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose members are commonly known as the Loreto Sisters, is a Roman Catholic religious congregation of women dedicated to education founded in Saint-Omer by an Englishwoman, Mary Ward, in 1609. The cong ...
), signed the deeds for the land the convent was to be built upon on 5 November 1686 under the alias Frances Long. Today, the Bar Convent is a popular
York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
destination for tourists and offers bed and breakfast accommodation, meeting rooms, a gift shop, café and museum exhibition about the Convent's history.


History


Origin and early years

The creation of the Convent was inspired, at least in part by Sir Thomas Gascoigne, a fervent
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
who declared "we must have a school for our daughters". Gascoigne even went as far as providing a gift of £450, part of which purchased a property on the Convent site and a boarding school, and day school, for Catholic girls was set up at the site by the nuns. The order was a target for frequent discrimination, leading in 1694 to the incarceration of Mother Frances and her great niece in Ousebridge Gaol. They were released shortly after but two years later, in 1696, the house was attacked and severely damaged by an angry mob. The engraving of
St Michael Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), also ...
over the front door is to commemorate this, with a local legend stating that St Michael appeared over the house riding a horse and the mob, terrified, fled the scene. The convent later came under attack from Doctor Jaques Sterne, a religious campaigner who ordered the convent be shut down and the children at the school sent home. The situation culminated in Mother Hodshon and a colleague being summoned before the Spiritual Court to answer charges of not receiving Anglican holy communion at Holy Trinity Church. The case fell apart, largely due to no service being carried out that day and was thrown out. Doctor Sterne would go on to become a staunch ally and supporter of the Convent following this incident. Mother Bedingfeld was recalled to Germany in 1699 and the original intention was that Mary Portington would succeed her. However, a family lawsuit made it politically difficult for Portington to take the post and the role fell instead to Dorothy Bedingfield (née Baston), whose reign coincided with a period of intense poverty and this, combined with her own unpopularity, meant that her 34-year reign was turbulent.


18th century

Under Mother Ann Aspinal, the convent was expanded and rebuilt, culminating in the original property being effectively demolished and rebuilt with the order moving to a neighbouring house for two years. The foundation stone for the new house was laid on 4 March 1766 and the house was covered by December 1768. Mother Aspinal also presided over the construction of what is described in the building licence as, "A new front wall to her house". What Mother Aspinal built was an entire extra level to the house, a
Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
Facade that added an extra set of rooms to the front of the house. A copy of the licence, granted by Lord Peter Johnson, then Mayor, can be viewed in the Convent's archives. The most significant addition to the new Convent was a Chapel. Mother Aspinal initially wanted the design to reflect Roman churches and hired Thomas Atkinson, the architect responsible for the
Neo Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
additions to
Bishopthorpe Palace Bishopthorpe Palace is a historic house at Bishopthorpe, to the south of York, in the City of York unitary authority and ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England. It is situated on the River Ouse and is the official residence of the Arc ...
to do the work. However, due to the continuing hostility to Catholicism, Atkinson took the decision to modify the initial design, incorporating it into the structure of the house itself. Instead of the dome Mother Aspinal intended, the dome was concealed beneath a slate roof, meaning it was hidden from the street. Atkinson also built eight different escape routes into the Chapel, to ensure that if the building was stormed, the worshippers would be able to escape. The Chapel was completed in 1769. The passing of the First Catholic Repeal Act in 1778 made life easier for the Convent as it allowed them to practise legally and legalised Catholic schools. This led to a new climate of religious freedom within Britain that allowed the nuns to wear the religious
habit A habit (or wont as a humorous and formal term) is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.
for the first time since the creation of the Convent. The passing of the
Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 The Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 (31 George III, c. 32) is an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1791 relieving Roman Catholics of certain political, educational, and economic disabilities. It admitted Catholics to the practice ...
in turn led to the Bar Convent being granted a licence to act as a public place of worship for the first time in its history. During the
Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...
the Convent found itself providing shelter to
émigré An ''émigré'' () is a person who has emigrated, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French ''émigrer'', "to emigrate". French Huguenots Many French Huguenots fled France followin ...
priests from the continent.
Mother Superior An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic ...
Catherine Rouby, the Superior at the time, also provided shelter to fugitive nuns including
Carmelites , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Ca ...
from
Brabant Brabant is a traditional geographical region (or regions) in the Low Countries of Europe. It may refer to: Place names in Europe * London-Brabant Massif, a geological structure stretching from England to northern Germany Belgium * Province of Bra ...
,
Canonesses Canoness is a member of a religious community of women living a simple life. Many communities observe the monastic Rule of St. Augustine. The name corresponds to the male equivalent, a canon. The origin and Rule are common to both. As with the c ...
of the Holy Sepulchre from Liège and
Poor Clares The Poor Clares, officially the Order of Saint Clare ( la, Ordo sanctae Clarae) – originally referred to as the Order of Poor Ladies, and later the Clarisses, the Minoresses, the Franciscan Clarist Order, and the Second Order of Saint Francis ...
from Dunkirk. Émigré families also sent their daughters to the school and several stayed on to become nuns in the community. The conflict and its aftermath led to the Convent being cut off from the Institute of the Blessed Virgin in Germany. As a result, Mother Superior Elizabeth Coyney petitioned the Pope to have the Convent put under the authority of the Northern Vicar Apostolic, Bishop Gibson.


20th century

Mother Mary Aikenhead, foundress of the
Sisters of Charity Many religious communities have the term Sisters of Charity in their name. Some ''Sisters of Charity'' communities refer to the Vincentian tradition, or in America to the tradition of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, but others are unrelated. The ...
, was a novice there for three years (1812–1815). The convent was bombed during the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, leading to the death of five nuns and the destruction of the East Wing. The order continued to maintain a school on the site until 1985, when control was handed over to the Middlesbrough diocese and it was renamed as All Saints School. The convent, however, is still involved in the catholic life of the '''Outstanding Academy.


Architecture


Exterior

The main building of the Convent is three storeys tall, with an attic, facing directly onto Blossom Street. The front façade has seven bays, the central three of which stand slightly forward from the others. There are 12-pane
sash windows A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History T ...
on the ground floor. The one which is directly above the doorcase is set in a shouldered surround with a balustrade below the window and a moulded cornice above it. At the rear of the building, there is a 3-storey 3-bay pent-roofed extension which houses a square clock tower. The tower itself is crowned with an
ogee An ogee ( ) is the name given to objects, elements, and curves—often seen in architecture and building trades—that have been variously described as serpentine-, extended S-, or sigmoid-shaped. Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combinat ...
roofed open
cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...
and timber columns. The schoolroom block of the main building is 2 storeys tall and has a 3 bay front. The windows are once again 12 pane sashes with differences in size and moulding between the first and second floors. All the windows have flat arches of rubbed brick.


Interior

The Entrance Hall to the main building was initially built as an open courtyard but has since been enclosed and Victorian tiles added. The court has a decorative tiled floor and a glass roof supported by iron trusses which are, in turn, supported by iron columns. The court also houses a clock, designed by
Henry Hindley Henry Hindley (1701–1771) was an 18th-century clockmaker, watchmaker and maker of scientific instruments. He invented a screw-cutting lathe, a fusee-cutting engine and an improved wheel-cutting engine and made one of the first dividing engine ...
. It was connected in around 1970 to the
pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...
clock on the building's frontage, on Blossom Street. The Great Parlour, which features paintings of some of the notable early
sisters A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to refer to ...
of the Convent, is located to the right of the ground floor and has a marble fireplace with round headed alcoves to each side.


Chapel

The Chapel block is two storeys tall and has two attics. It has a 5-bay front end that is masked by extensions housing the
Lady Chapel A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British English, British term for a chapel dedicated to "Our Lady", Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church (building), church. The chapels are also known as ...
and a staircase. The ground floor has two windows containing 4 round-headed
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
lights, while the first floor has three windows with central pivoted lights. The Chapel's interior houses a stone staircase with square iron balusters that leads up to the Chapel on the first floor. The Chapel itself contains a domed
sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...
, a
nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
with three bays and a north and south
transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...
. The sanctuary is a domed rotunda with eight detached and fluted columns and a
frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
depicting features such as vine leaves, urns and posies. The Dome itself has eight bays, each of which features garlands of various fruits and foliage and is topped by a painted glass lantern. The South transept leads into the Lady Chapel which is lit by a small dome and cupola. Beneath the North transept is a square space which may once have served as a
Priest hole A priest hole is a hiding place for a priest built into many of the principal Catholic houses of England, Wales and Ireland during the period when Catholics were persecuted by law. When Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558, there were se ...
. The
altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, churches, and other places of worship. They are used particularly in paga ...
dates from 1969 but uses scrolled legs featuring winged cherub heads from the 18th-century original. Behind the altar is a 20th-century reredos which is topped by 18th-century carved figures of
Saint Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is co ...
, Saint Ambrose,
Saint Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...
and Saint Gregory which support a Spanish Ivory crucifix.


Present day

The Bar Convent is England's oldest living convent, still home to a resident community of sisters (who belong to the
Congregation of Jesus The Congregation of Jesus is one of two congregations of Religious Sisters founded during the 17th century through the work of the nun Mary Ward, who was dedicated to female education. The other congregation is the Sisters of Loreto, a name the ...
). The Grade I
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
s were widely renovated in 2015 and now house a museum exploring the history of the convent and the community, as well as a café, meetings rooms and a guest house.


See also

*
Christina Kenworthy-Browne Christina Kenworthy-Browne CJ is an English Roman Catholic Religious Sister who belongs to the Congregation of Jesus, as well as an academic, researcher and writer. In 2009 at the opening of Bar Convent's Jubilee 400 Heritage Project, Sister ...


References


External links

*
The Bar Convent Living Heritage Centre
{{Churches in York Roman Catholic churches in York Convents in England Grade I listed buildings in York History of York History of Catholicism in England Grade I listed convents Museums in York Religious museums in England Christian monasteries established in the 17th century 1686 establishments in England Sisters of Loreto Grade I listed churches in York Blossom Street