In The Presence Of...

Quarr Abbey, or from the French perspective, Abbaye Notre-Dame de Quarr, since this is a French monastery between the villages of Binstead and Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight (IOW) just off the southern coast of England. The name is pronounced as "Kor" and it belongs to the Catholic Order of St Benedict. A community of seven active monks maintains the monastery's regular life and the attached farm.

The name Quarr comes from the word ‘quarry’, because there used to be a stone quarry in the neighbourhood. The original title of the monastery was the Abbey of Our Lady of the Quarry. Stone from the quarry was used in the Middle Ages for both ecclesiastical and military buildings, for example for parts of the Tower of London.

This monastery was designed by the monk architect, Dom Paul Bellot (1876-1944), aged 31 years old. He studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1894-1901) and was a student of Marcel Lambert. Following his studies he had hoped to marry the sister of a fellow student, Paul-Marie-Joseph Hulot, but she became a Carmelite Nun. Paul Bellot therefore took up his Benedictine vocation in 1904. After working as a supervisour on the building of the Oosterhout’s Benedictine Monastery in the Netherlands. In 1907, he was given the task of designing the new abbey at Quarr.

His design for the new abbey, incorporating and extending Quarr Abbey House, some distance from the ruins of the medieval monastery, which can still be visited today. Three-hundred workers from the Isle of Wight, who were more accustomed to building dwelling-houses, raised a building whose design and workmanship has been admired by all who visit the Abbey.

The building of the refectory and three sides of the cloister began in 1907 and was completed inside one year. The rest of the monks came from Appuldurcombe and, in April 1911, work began on the Abbey church which was quickly completed and consecrated on 12 October 1912. It was built with tall pointed towers of glowing Flemish brick, adding a touch of Byzantium to the skyline of the Isle of Wight.

The Monastery, today, is a Grade One listed monastic buildings and church, which was completed in 1912, and is considered one of the most important twentieth-century religious structures in the United Kingdom. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described the Abbey as, "among the most daring and successful church buildings of the early 20th century in England". It was constructed from Belgian brick in a style combining French, Byzantine and Moorish architectural elements. In the vicinity are a few remains of the original twelfth-century abbey.

If you have any interest or none, you cannot help falling in love with and being an admirer of this building’s architecture. When I was taking my City & Guilds Art and Photography Course back in the early to mid 1990’s at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art. I majored in photographing architecture and this Monastery is very photogenic.

Coming here, you are it the presence of..., a very peaceful place, a place touched by God. A place where the peace holds you in His presence. Jesus Christ said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”

Well this peace is all around you here at the Abbey and because of this peace you cannot truly feel repelled by Catholicism, but welcomed with open arms by the english and latin chants that are daily recited. The silence of peace at meal times and the Great Silence after Compline in the evening, until Terce followed by Mass of the following morning.

It is a place of pilgrimage and I cannot help feel that I will be coming back to this place, away from the seeming chaos of our secular worldly church, to find God’s peaceful oasis...