St Beuno's Jesuit Spirituality Centre, known locally as St Beuno's College, is a spirituality and retreat centre in
Tremeirchion
Tremeirchion (previously known as ''Lleweni'') is a small residential community in Denbighshire, Wales. It lies on the B5429 road, to the north east of Denbigh and to the east of St Asaph. The community includes the village of Rhuallt.
The tow ...
,
Denbighshire
Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewy ...
, Wales. It was built in 1847 by the
Jesuits
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
, as a theology college. During the 1870s the Victorian poet
Gerard Manley Hopkins studied there. Since 1980, it has been a spirituality and retreat centre. Standing on the
Clwydian Range
The Clwydian Range ( cy, Bryniau Clwyd; also known as the Clwydian Hills; or simply the Clwyds) is a series of hills in the north-east of Wales that runs from Llandegla in the south to Prestatyn in the north, the highest point being the pop ...
, the front of the building faces west towards Snowdonia and overlooks the
Vale of Clwyd
The Vale of Clwyd ( cy, Dyffryn Clwyd) is a tract of low-lying ground in the county of Denbighshire in north-east Wales. The Vale extends south-southwestwards from the coast of the Irish Sea for some 20 miles (about 30 km) forming a triangl ...
. The building became a Grade II*
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 ...
and a Welsh Historic Monument in 2002.
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History
Foundation
In 1832, Following the Act of Catholic Emancipation of 1829, the Jesuits came to North Wales and founded St Winefride's Church in nearby Holywell, Flintshire
Holywell ( '','' cy, Treffynnon) is a market town and community in Flintshire, Wales. It lies to the west of the estuary of the River Dee. The community includes Greenfield.
Etymology
The name Holywell is literally ' + ' in reference to St W ...
. In 1846, Fr Randal Lythgoe, the Provincial of the Jesuits in Britain, visited Holywell and toured the neighbouring area. When he came to Tremeirchion, to see farm land which the Jesuits owned, he quickly resolved that this should be the site for a new college to train Jesuit recruits for the priesthood. The college was named after a local saint, St Beuno
Saint Beuno ( la, Bonus;Baring-Gould &
Fisher, "Lives of the British Saints" (1907), quoted a Early British Kingdoms website by David Nash Ford, accessed 6 February 2012 640), sometimes anglicized as Bono, was a 7th-century Welsh abbot, ...
.
Construction
St Beuno's was designed by the architect Joseph Aloysius Hansom
Joseph Aloysius Hansom (26 October 1803 – 29 June 1882) was a British architect working principally in the Gothic Revival style. He invented the Hansom cab and founded the eminent architectural journal, ''The Builder'', in 1843.
Career
H ...
, known for the Hansom cab
The hansom cab is a kind of horse-drawn carriage designed and patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, ...
. He went on to design many churches for the Jesuits, such as the Oxford Oratory
The Oxford Oratory Church of St Aloysius Gonzaga (or Oxford Oratory for short) is the Catholic parish church for the centre of Oxford, England. It is located at 25 Woodstock Road, next to Somerville College. The church is served by the Congreg ...
, St Walburge's Church
St Walburge's Church is a Roman Catholic church in Preston, Lancashire, England, northwest of the city centre on Weston Street. The church was built in the mid-19th century to a design by the Gothic Revival architect Joseph Hansom, the designer ...
in Preston. In the late 1870s, Gerard Manley Hopkins while studying there, described the building, as "built of limestone, decent outside, skimping within, Gothic like Lancing College
Lancing College is a public school (English independent day and boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in southern England, UK. The school is located in West Sussex, east of Worthing near the village of Lancing, on the south coast of England. ...
done worse."
Originally, St Beuno's College was a quadrangle enclosing a garden. The outside walls were made of stone, with Gothic gargoyles and stone carving, and inside were broad corridors and large but simple rooms. There were classrooms, a library, parlour and recreation room, all connected by a basement corridor on the west side of the building. On the south side, the highest part of the quadrangle, were three galleries which housed the teachers and the students. On the north side was the refectory.
Heating for the lower floor was provided by heat being channelled into the house from a greenhouse attached to the front west side of the building. Fresh water was provided from local streams and kept in tanks, which still exist above the terraces. Food was grown locally both in the college's grounds and on the adjacent college farm. The college had its own gas works. Furthermore, within the grounds, close to the entrance, a small school house was built to serve the local population.
Twenty years after its construction, St Beuno's College needed to be extended to accommodate the increased numbers of Jesuits training there. Extra rooms were added in the attics and a new North Wing was built to the left of the tower.
From 1862, the Tremeirchion Cross stood at the entrance of St Beuno's. It is a medieval stone carved cross. In the 16th century, it was described in his writings by the poet, Gruffydd ab Ieuan ap Llywelyn Fychan of Llanerch. It was originally in the churchyard of the local parish Corpus Christi Church in Tremeirchion. In 1862, the church sold it for £5 to raise funds to buy new lamps. It was bought by a Mr J. Y. Hinde of Rhyl
Rhyl (; cy, Y Rhyl, ) is a seaside town and community in Denbighshire, Wales. The town lies within the historic boundaries of Flintshire, on the north-east coast of Wales at the mouth of the River Clwyd ( Welsh: ''Afon Clwyd'').
To the we ...
who then gave it to St Beuno's. In 2002, St Beuno's gave it back to the local church, where it now stands in the churchyard, where it is a Grade II listed monument.
Developments
In 1926, the site ceased to be a training college. The Jesuit students were moved to Heythrop College
Heythrop College, University of London, was a constituent college of the University of London between 1971 and 2018, last located in Kensington Square, London. It comprised the university's specialist faculties of philosophy and theology with soc ...
in Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...
. Instead, St Beuno's became a place of study for the final years of the long Jesuit training, the tertianship Tertianship is the final period of formation for members of the Society of Jesus. Upon invitation of the Provincial, it usually begins three to five years after completion of graduate studies. It is a time when the candidate for final vows steps ba ...
.
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 opposin ...
it was a place of refuge to many Jesuit novices
A novice is a person who has entered a religious order and is under probation, before taking vows. A ''novice'' can also refer to a person (or animal e.g. racehorse) who is entering a profession with no prior experience.
Religion Buddhism
...
who were sent from Manresa House in Roehampton, during and after the Blitz
The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'.
The Germa ...
. After the war it reverted to its role as a tertianship centre.
Retreat Centre
From 1970 the house began to host its first retreats. It originally received religious sisters
A religious sister (abbreviated ''Sr.'' or Sist.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to pra ...
for 8-day and later, for 30-day retreats. Whereas the training of Jesuits became increasingly difficult in the countryside, far from city centres, the retreat work grew in popularity. In 1980, St Beuno's became a retreat centre.
St Beuno's runs a programme of retreats all the year round, ranging from short weekend retreats to those which last 30 days. It also offers courses in Ignatian Spirituality Ignatian spirituality, also known as Jesuit spirituality, is a Catholic spirituality founded on the experiences of the 16th-century Spanish saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order. The main idea of this form of spirituality comes from ...
of one to six months' duration.
From 2018 to 2020 a large-scale renovation was undertaken to add en-suite facilities to rooms, create larger rooms for meetings and modernise the front entrance.
In the 2010s, retreats at St Beuno's began to be featured in the national media. In 2010, it was a location for the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
series ''The Big Silence'' where participants spent 8 days on a silent retreat at St Beuno's. In 2017, two actors also did an 8-day retreat there in preparation for the Martin Scorsese film ''
''.
In 1876 the 'Rock Chapel' was built on a wooded hill to the south of St Beuno's. It was designed by a Jesuit student,
, as an architect before joining the Jesuits. Ignatius went on to design
. From the Rock Chapel it is possible to see the village of Tremeirchion and the
. In 2020 repairs were made to the roof and stonework, and an appeal launched to fund improvements for furniture and access.