St. Hugh's Charterhouse, Parkminster
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St Hugh's Charterhouse, Parkminster, is the only post-
Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
Carthusian The Carthusians, also known as the Order of Carthusians ( la, Ordo Cartusiensis), are a Latin enclosed religious order of the Catholic Church. The order was founded by Bruno of Cologne in 1084 and includes both monks and nuns. The order has its ...
monastery in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
. It is located in the parish of Cowfold,
West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It is a
Grade II* listed 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 ...
building.


History

The monastery was founded in 1873, when the property formerly known as Picknoll was acquired for its construction in order to accommodate two houses of French Carthusians in exile. Building took place between 1876 and 1883 to designs by a French architect, Clovis Normand, who had at his disposal a generous budget. The number of monks has varied: 22 in 1883, 43 in 1932, 22 in 1984, and there were 27 monks as of January 2021. The buildings are in a French
Gothic Revival 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 ...
style although Pevsner's judgement was that 'the plan is magnificent and can only be properly seen from the air'. The church has relics of Saint Hugh of Lincoln,
Saint Boniface Boniface, OSB ( la, Bonifatius; 675 – 5 June 754) was an English Benedictines, Benedictine monk and leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to the Germanic parts of the Frankish Empire during the eighth century. He organised significant ...
and the
Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...
; and an unusually tall spire. It stands in the centre of buildings including a library with a collection of rare books and manuscripts and a
chapter house A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole communi ...
decorated with images of the martyrdom of the monks' predecessors. The Great Cloister, about long, one of the longest in the world, connects the 34 hermitages to the church and the other buildings, embracing four acres of orchards and the monastic burial ground.Christopher Martin, ''A Glimpse of Heaven: Catholic churches of England and Wales'', English Heritage, Swindon, 2006, pp 159-160 The total length of the cloisters is 1,012 m.


See also

*
List of Carthusian monasteries This is a list of Carthusian monasteries, or charterhouses, containing both extant and dissolved Monastery, monasteries of the Carthusians (also known as the Order of Saint Bruno) for monks and nuns, arranged by location under their present count ...
*
List of monasteries dissolved by Henry VIII of England These monasteries were dissolved by King Henry VIII of England in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The list is by no means exhaustive, since over 800 religious houses existed before the Reformation, and virtually every town, of any size, had ...
* List of monastic houses in England * List of places of worship in Horsham District


References


Further reading

*
Robin Bruce Lockhart Robert Norman Bruce Lockhart (13 April 1920 – 20 February 2008), known as Robin, was a British journalist, stock broker, and author. Biography Bruce Lockhart was the only son of R. H. Bruce Lockhart, a British diplomat, secret agent, journalis ...
, ''Half-way to Heaven: The Hidden Life of the Sublime Carthusians'' (London: Thames Methuen, 1985) * Nancy Klein Maguire, ''An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and Their Trial of Faith in the Western World's Most Austere Monastic Order'' (roman à clef, = novel based on real-life stories) (New York: PublicAffairs Books 2006, a division of Perseus Publishing, ISBN hardback , paperback 978-1-58648-432-3)


External sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cowford, Saint Hugh Carthusian monasteries in England Monasteries in West Sussex 1873 establishments in England 19th-century Christian monasteries Grade II* listed buildings in West Sussex Roman Catholic churches completed in 1886 Grade II* listed Roman Catholic churches in England Grade II* listed monasteries 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom