To an outsider, the monastic life can appear narrow and relentless. Certainly, it is hard work. This is a prayer factory, a light salvific mill, the workers grafting night and day on behalf of all mankind.... By withdrawing from the worl, they participate in it. — Peter Ross, pp. 8-9.
A Monk at His Devotions, Overbeck.
Source: Jameson, Introduction.
Discussions
Monastries
- St Susan's at Lulworth, Dorset
- Downside Abbey, nr. Bath, Somerset
- Mount St. Bernard Abbey, nr Loughborough, Leicestershire
- St Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate, Kent
- The Abbey, Erdington, Birmingham
- Caldey Monastery, Pembrokeshire
Convents
Elizabeth Neale, who founded the Community of the
Holy Cross. Source: Russell, facing p. 12.
- Holy Cross Abbey, Stapehill, Dorset
- The Sisterhood at Park Village West, London (later Lydia Sellon's Sisterhood [Anglican]
- Our Lady of Mercy, Bermondsey, London
- Community of the Holy Cross, Wapping, London [Anglican]
Related Material
Bibliography
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_____. The Call of the Cloister: Religious Communities and Kindred Bodies in the Anglican Communion. London: SPCK, 1956.
Bell, David N. Strangers in a Strange Land: The Trappist Monastery of Saint Susan at Lulworth, Dorset, 1794-1817. Cistercian Studies, No.299. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2024.
Bellenger DA. "A Standing Miracle": La Trappe at Lulworth, 1794–1817. Studies in Church History. 22 (1985): 343-350. doi:10.1017/S0424208400008056
Birt, Henry Norbert. Downside: The History of St. Gregory's School from Its Commencement at Douay to the Present Time. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1902. Internet Archive.
Brittain-Catlin, Timothy. 19th- and 20th-Century Convents and Monasteries: Introductions to Heritage Assets. https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/iha-19-20-century-convents-monasteries/heag129-19and20c-convents-and-monasteries-iha/
Carroll, Austin. Life of Catherine McAuley: Foundress and First Superior of the Institute of Religious Sisters of Mercy. New York: D. & J. Sadlier, 1866. Internet Archive.
A Cistercian Monk. A Concise History of the Cistercian Order: with the lives of SS. Robert, Alberric and Stephen; with its revival in England at St. Susan's, Lullworth and Mount St. Bernard, Leicestershire. London, Dublin and Derby: Thomas Richardson and Son, 1852. Internet Archive.
Crawford, Joseph. "The Romantic Gothic Imagination." The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Medievalism, edited by Joanne Parker and Corrine Wagner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 125-138.
Father Paul. "The Monks of La Trappe." The Gentleman's Magazine: and Historical Chronicle. Vol. LXXXIII (January-June 1813): 319-321. Google Books. Free to read.
Hill, Rosemary. God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain. London: Penguin, 2008.
"History of Downside Abbey." Downside Abbey. https://www.downsideabbey.co.uk/benedictine-monastery/downside-abbey-church/history-of-downside/
"History of Mount St Bernard." https://www.mountsaintbernard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/History-of-Mount-St-Bernard.pdf
Jameson, Anna. Legends of the monastic orders: as represented in the fine arts. Forming the second series of Sacred and legendary art. London: Longmans, Green, 1867. Internet Archive.
Janes, Dominic. "The Oxford Movement, Asceticism, and Sexual Desire." The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Medievalism, edited by Joanne Parker and Corrine Wagner. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. 353-369.
Mumm, Susan. All Saints Sisters of the Poor: An Anglican Sisterhood in the Nineteenth Century. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 2001.
P.F. Letter to the Editor. The Monthly Magazine Vol. 10, issue 64 (1 October 1800): 230-32. Internet Archive.
"Post-Dissolution House: Cistercian abbey of Mount Saint Bernard." A History of the County of Leicestershire. Vol. 2. Edited by W G Hoskins, R A McKinley (London, 1954), British History Online. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp53-54
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Robinson, C.E. A Royal Warren, or Picturesque Rambles in the Isle of Purbeck. London: The Typographical Etching Co., 1882. Internet Archive.
Ross, Peter. Steeple Chasing: Round Britain by Church. Pbk ed. London: Headline, 2024.
Russell, Alan. Community of the Holy Cross, Haywards Heath: A Short History of Its Life and Work. Haywards Heath, Sussex: Holy Cross, 1957. Internet Archive, digitized by Richard Mammana, August 2022 and available on the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International Creative Commons License.
Trench, Maria Marcia Fanny. The Story of Dr Pusey's Life. London and New York: Longmans, Green, 1900. Internet Archive.
Young, Victoria M. "A.W.N. Pugin's Mount Saint Bernard Abbey: The International Character of England's Nineteenth-Century Monastic Revival." Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century Visual Culture. Vol I, 1 (Spring 2002). https://19thc-artworldwide.org/spring02/
Created 21 August 2026