Shepherds Law Hermitage

From several directions and from a variety of people I have been told that I should write an account of my life at Shepherds Law and the building up of the Hermitage of S. Mary and S. Cuthbert. Indeed this has been laid upon me as an obedience.

But where should one begin the story? For the moment let it be my first visit as a Novice of the Society of S. Francis to the Monastery of S. Mary at the Cross at Glasshampton in Worcestershire. This religious house had been founded in 1918 by Fr. William Sirr in the hope of the restoration of monastic life in England. But there was not an increase of the life and Fr. William died in 1931 as a solitary and without the hoped for community. A group of his friends had to buy the property from a Birmingham coal merchant and a trust was formed to care for the buildings until such time as a community came into being. In September 1939 his body was brought back to Glasshampton and buried in the interior garth of the Monastery. Near to the grave an inscription was set in the wall.

The six years of the World War prevented any further progress. At first some nuns evacuated from Haywards Heath occupied the Monastery and they were followed by evacuee children and then by women of the Land Army.

After the war an attempt was made to found a community but it came to nothing. In 1948 the Trustees asked the Society of S. Francis to look after the Monastery on a temporary basis until the looked for community should arise. Fr. Algy accepted this invitation and the Society began to use the Monastery as a place where Novices could spend a number of months in retirement. The normal pattern was for a group of novices to go to the Monastery at the beginning of November and to remain there until the following July. For the remaining months of the year the Monastery was on a care and maintenance basis and Fr. Algy used to invite students and especially ordinands to share in the life.

It was at such a time in September 1958 that I was dispatched from Cerne Abbas, the Mother House of the Society, to Glasshampton to do the cooking and housework and keep the place going. There was only one other brother present, an oblate of the Society who looked after the garden. The local vicar walked across the park from his rectory each day to say the Mass. All the walls of the Monastery were painted white as was the woodwork of the doors and windows. In the middle of the garth was a large Crucifix surmounted by a white plaster figure of the Christ. Behind the central pavillion, that was once the arched entrance to the stables, was written in white letters a quotation from the Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis

Man why seekest thou repose?

Thou are born to labour.

There was a little garden around the Monastery and beyond the fence the remains of a large park dotted with chestnut and oak trees in which cattle grazed. The park stretched down to a brook on the other side of which the land rose steeply through a wood to the parish church and rectory.

At some time during those warm September days the white walls of the Monastery spoke to me of Fr. William and of his vocation to the contemplative life and to echo within me opening a door to a hitherto unknown region of my heart. I count this visit as the beginning of a vocation which eventually brought me to Shepherds Law and the eremitical tradition of the Church.

Again in the summer of 1959 I went to Glasshampton to assist in looking after some students and then in November of that year I joined a group of five other novices for the term of obligatory withdrawal and enclosure. We travelled together with the Novice Master from Cerne Abbas in a mini-bus and called to visit Downside Abbey and Tewkesbury Abbey on the way to Glasshampton. During this period of retirement we did not go outside the monastery enclosure except for necessary business such as a visit to the doctor or dentist. On Sundays we went together with the Novice Master for a long afternoon walk in the surrounding countryside. We would walk through the woods to the River Severn, or up on to Abberley Hill often visiting one of the local parish churches, built with the distinctive red sandstone of the locality. In March 1960 I had to make a special journey back to Cerne Abbas in order to make my first vows of profession in the Society. Though I was bidden to stay the day after the service which was in the early morning at 6.30 am, I received a reprimand from the Novice Master for not returning to the enclosure at Glasshampton immediately after the breakfast following the service.

On Ascension Day we all went together on a day’s outing. By my time this had taken a traditional form. We went by bus to Worcester, each issued with a single penny for use if a visit to a public convenience proved necessary. Then by another bus to Malvern to see the Victorian chapel of the Beecham Hospital, and a more recent Anglo-Catholic church where there was a group of Companions of the Society. After that we walked to the Convent of the Holy Name to join the Sisters in their lovely Comper chapel resplendent in white and gold for the prayers of the middle of day. This was followed by a sandwich lunch presided over by the Reverend Mother. In the afternoon we climbed up the Worcester beacon to take in the far flung view of the Severn plain and the Vale of Evesham backed by Breedon Hill and the Cotswolds. To the west were the hills of Wales, the Sugar Loaf and the Black Mountains. The day ended with a frantic dash to be in time for Choral Evensong at Worcester Cathedral, before catching the evening bus back to Glasshampton.

At the close of our enclosure term we were visited by the Minister of the Society who was to inform us of our postings to the various works of the Society. After some hesitations it was decided that I should remain at Glasshampton and take up the duties of the Steward who was responsible for the cooking and the material management of the household, seeing to the accounts, the shopping and the maintenance of the building. This task I undertook for five years, with a different group of novices each November and three successive Novice Masters. During these months there was an opportunity to read widely in the well stocked library of Fr. William. In the novice year our reading had been directed and we had been encouraged to fill out the subjects of our lectures. These consisted of a course on the history of religious life, spirituality and different modes of teaching prayer through the centuries, Franciscan studies and rule of SSF, a study of the Gospels and a lecture on the liturgy of the week. There was also a choir practice for the hymns of the week and the proper plainsong antiphons for the Magnificat at Evensong.

As I struggled to find my place in the Society I found myself asking the question ‘What exactly are we doing daily in the Chapel reading the Psalms at Matins and Evensong with the whole of Ps. 199 said daily at Prime, Terce, Sext and None?’ From time to time our voices became discordant and less than harmonious with an undignified rush which did not give proper weight to the words. So I began to read what I could find on the subject of Liturgy and Worship. I was led first to Fr. Gabriel Hebert’s book Liturgy and Society which paved the way for the Parish Communion movement in England; then to the writings of Louis Bouyer with his deep appreciation of the Anglican Cathedral tradition of daily choral worship. Here too was my first introduction to the German Benedictine monk of Maria Laach Abbey, Dom Odo Casel, with his restatement of the patristic understanding of worship as the celebration of the Christian mystery of the Paschal triumph; the life death and resurrection of Jesus the Lord. In celebrating the rites of the Liturgy, the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection becomes present, so that by faith believers are incorporated into the mystical body of the risen Christ through the activity of the Holy Spirit. Romano Guardini revealed to me the spirit of the Liturgy and Dom Gregory Dix opened to me the classical understanding of the Liturgy as that which builds up the holy people of God in a faithful celebration of the resurrection of Christ, Sunday by Sunday, in the cycle of the liturgical year through the centuries. Through the Vicar of Pershore, a market town first beyond Worcester on the way to London, I came to learn from Fr. James Crichton for many years the Catholic parish priest and a noted writer and teacher of the Liturgy. He introduced me to the whole new world of liturgical thinking that was associated with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. I can still remember the thrill as I began to read the Decree on the Liturgy with its emphasis on the common worship of the Church as being its highest manifestation. How different everything suddenly became.

The course of the Oxford Movement in England with the controversies over the externals of religion and the manner of the celebration of the Eucharist led to an emphasis being placed on the correct way of performing the Liturgy. Perfection was obtained in a faithful adherence to the rubrics as they were explained in such definitive books as The Ritual Reason Why, The Parsons Handbook and Ritual Notes.1 Since the 16th century the Church had modelled itself on the prevailing ideas of absolute monarchy and the Bishops were Princes and Lords of the Church. The Liturgy was performed by professionals in buildings which often resembled theatres or opera houses. The music required orchestras and professional singers and tended to overlay the celebration at the altar, while the people of God became passive spectators of a performance of which the climax was the elevation of the Host and Chalice during the prayer of consecration.

With the Vatican Council the Church accepted the teachings and insights of the Liturgical Movement which had gradually spread throughout the churches as the fruit of the dedication and scholarship of numbers of religious orders. So I read what I could find about the centres of renewal in Belgium, France and Germany and waited for the day when I could visit them.

As this interest in the contemplative life and monastic tradition of the Church took hold of me I began to consider indeed whether my vocation was in the active life of the Society of S. Francis, though in the Franciscan tradition there had always been an element of withdrawal to hermitages in remote and rocky places. S. Francis himself had struggled as to whether his vocation was to be in the world or in retirement. He came to see that such graces that he might be given in prayer were to be shared especially among the poor and outcasts of society. In the Society of S. Francis there were already hopes that a more regular form of contemplative life might in time develop at Glasshampton with a stability of vocation. But there were differing views as to whether this was an individual call to solitude and prayer or sharing in a common life at whose centre was the regular celebration in choir of the Opus Dei – the work of God to which nothing was to be preferred.

Because of these uncertainties I did not feel ready to make a definitive and lifelong engagement with the Society. Accordingly I asked for a year’s extension to my simple vows and the opportunity to visit other communities to see if my vocation should lie with them. Confessor Extraordinary Fr Hubert Slade SSJE said ‘they will crucify you’. This meant in fact visiting the Benedictine Community at Nashdom, housed in a magnificent country house built by Lutyens for a Russian princess, and the little Community of the Servants of the Will of God at Crawley Down. This Community had been founded in 1938 by Fr Robert Goften-Salmond, the vicar of S. Lukes Old Street in London and was directly inspired by the life of Fr. William at Glasshampton.

At Nashdom I was given a room in the guesthouse which had once been the stables and garage of the mansion. For the offices and refectory I walked the short distance across the garden to the house. The chapel was in the ballroom with a baroque altar designed by the noted Anglo-Catholic architect Martin Travers. Seats for the visitors were in the minstrels’ gallery, from where I looked down on the celebration of the Mass and offices all in the Latin of the Roman tradition. On one day I was taken into the enclosure to see the Abbot and passed along corridors lined with shelves of books and little altars for the celebration of private masses placed in convenient alcoves.

The monks of Nashdom had had a hard struggle to vindicate the Benedictine life within the Church of England and this is their considerable achievement. But to do this they had adopted the prevailing norms of Benedictine life within the Roman Church. This did not fit easily with my own upbringing in the established church. I also found the limitation of the grounds and their situation amidst other wealthy suburban mansions, together with the proximity of London Airport, not easy to assimilate. Indeed the large airliners passing low overhead made it almost impossible to hear the Liturgy in the chapel.

Crawley Down was similarly close to Gatwick Airport and the Monastery was housed in two bungalow properties with the addition of a chapel and other extensions all joined together by an enclosed and glazed corridor. It was reached by a long drive from the public road through a densely wooded and somewhat damp hollow which led down to a hammer pond of some size which did not belong to the Monastery. There was a small herd of cows which provided milk and cheese for the monks and a large kitchen garden. The community numbered some half a dozen of members and there were two or three guest rooms in the building which housed the refectory and kitchen. In the chapel which was formed of two concrete prefabricated buildings placed in a T position the Liturgy was in English using the Monastic Diurnal, an edition prepared in the USA with adaptations to the Book of Common Prayer. After a pleasant and wise discussion with the Founder I did not feel that my vocation lay in that direction.

Also during that summer I visited Quarr Abbey in the Isle of Wight. This community had been founded by the French monks of Solesmes exiled from France in 1907. They had returned to France after the Great War and had left behind a small community which had gradually recruited English members. At the time of my visit there were still a number of French monks though the majority were now English. The church and the greater part of the monastic buildings had been built in a remarkable style with Flemish bricks by the monk architect Dom Paul Louis Denis Bellot. I was immediately attracted by the Solesmes tradition of Gregorian chant, and was able to speak with the French choirmaster about the singing of the chant. A number of the monks came to talk with me in the guest house and I was able to walk in the extensive grounds which stretched through a wood down to the sea with fine views across the water, dotted with yachts and ships passing up and down on their way to Portsmouth or Southampton.

My predecessor as Steward at Glasshampton, Fr. Aelred Arnesen had gone to live with the Sisters of the Sacred Cross at Tymawr, a beautiful place above the woods which sloped down to the River Wye not far from Monmouth. The sisters lived an enclosed life in the tradition of Cistercian nuns, with several fields and a small herd of cows to be looked after together with an extensive fruit and vegetable garden. Fr. Aelred acted as the chaplain while he himself explored the possibilities of contemplative life. For many years a good lady living in Stourport used to help the Steward with the weekly shopping in the town and drive him back to Glasshampton. On several occasions Mrs Evers took me to Tymawr in order to spend the day with Fr. Aelred. By 1963 he had moved to Freeland where he acted as the chaplain to the Community of S. Clare, the second order of the Society of S. Francis. The sisters lived in a large Victorian house next to the Church and vicarage and a modern chapel had been built for them. The chaplain’s house was a semi-detached cottage on the edge of the grounds, the other half being the village public house. One of the brothers from Hilfield went to live with him for a while, but did not consider it his vocation. I also had to consider whether this might be my vocation, for I was drawn more towards a regular common life with the celebration of the Opus Dei in choir, than to the other current views of an individual Franciscan hermit living in solitude.

When the time came to make a decision as to which way to go, I easily put aside the options of Nashdom and Crawley Down and made it known that I would like to join Fr. Aelred at Freeland. The answer I received was unexpected, that I would not be suitable for such a life and that in any case Fr. Aelred did not want me. It was therefore with a heavy heart that I agreed to make my life profession in the Society on the grounds that this was a reasonable sacrifice of my will and that it would be received by God and blessed by him.

My profession was fixed for the Ember Wednesday in Lent, in those days a fast of special note. Again I travelled by train to the Mother House in Dorset. We had to wait for the Bishop Protector to come from Exeter and in my uncertainties I myself was late for the service. I sat next to the Bishop at the Lenten lunch and on the following day returned to Glasshampton not knowing what my future would be.

After a while it was decided that I should go to Dorset to act as the Guestmaster at the Mother House. It was not a happy time for me and I had difficulty in managing my various responsibilities. This time did not last long as a new house, opened in 1961 at Alnmouth in Northumberland, was short of brothers. On Guy Fawkes Day I found myself walking down the platform at King’s Cross Station to catch the Heart of Midlothian express to Alnmouth. The journey took 5¼ hours, and I arrived in time for a late supper at Alnmouth.

By this time I had earned a reputation in the Society of being a difficult brother who did not easily fit in with the normal relations of a Friary, so I was given the job of cleaning the Ladies and Gentlemen’s toilets of the big house and doing the laundry in the back area of the kitchens where there was a washing machine and a tumble dryer, with a trestle covered with an old sheet for ironing. In those days there was no proper central heating for much of the house and we kept the fires going in the parlours with sea coal which we used to collect in buckets and dustbins from the sandy beach across the golf course from the Friary.

After a year my interest in the Liturgy was recognised and I was asked to give a series of lectures on our common prayer and the recitation of the Psalms in the daily offices. These were for the benefit of the new entrants into the Society who began their religious life as Postulants at Alnmouth. Later I was given a responsibility of oversight for these brothers, before they departed to Dorset to be made Novices of the Society. Now after thirty years or more only three of them remain in the Society.

At this time I was given the opportunity to visit the Cistercian monastery of Nunraw in the Lammermuir Hills which lie over the border in Scotland some 50-60 miles north of Alnmouth. I went with the Provost of Newcastle as an entourage for the Abbot of Nashdom. We had a meal with the Abbot in a private apartment of the guest house and were then shown over the building of the new monastery which was being completed on the hill above the baronial property which the monks had purchased.

In 1966 there was a General Chapter of the Society at Hilfield as the Mother House was now called. For this there had been much preparation and the writing of papers in the attempt to discern the direction the Society should take in the changed circumstances of the Church following upon the calling of the Vatican Council by Pope John. For me there were two memorable events. The first was the visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsay and the address he gave on prayer and the spiritual life.

I know I must pray for a given time, for most of that time is taken up with the latest scuffle in the Church, and I need time for it to settle if there is to be a spark of prayer.

and

If I can’t pray, perhaps I can want to pray, or if not that, to want to want to pray.

The second incident was the exchange of views between the two advocates of contemplative life which spiralled into the heights of theology. I have subsequently thought that this occasion was the beginning of the way for Fr. Aelred in his decision to seek to follow the Cistercian way of life at Ewell Monastery within the precincts of West Malling Abbey near Maidstone in Kent.

Almost immediately at the close of the Chapter I went with two Anglican curates on a three week journey by car through France. Furthermore it was my first visit to the continent for more than 10 years. It proved to be a very important time for the growth of my vocation and the deepening of my understanding of the Catholicity of the Church. Among the places we stayed at were the Abbey of Le Bec Hellouin and the Community at Taizé. At Bec we were made welcome with the friendship the monks have for the Church of England, forged through the close connection the Abbey has had with Canterbury since the time of Archbishops Lanfranc and S. Anselm. An impressive number of monks became Bishops and Abbots in the English Church, thus reminding me of the place England held in the generality of Christian life in western Europe. Bec also gave us an insight into the widespread prayer for the healing of the divisions of the Church.

Our arrival at Taizé is fresh in my mind. We had been at a house of studies in which the spirit of common worship was at a low ebb, though no doubt the duty of reading the Breviary in private was fulfilled. In the great modern church at Taizé we were uplifted by the united voices of the large congregation singing the evening offices to tones suited to the French language accompanied by the fluty notes of a pipe organ. The community surrounded by many visitors were gathered to sing the praises of God in the Psalms, to hear the word of God and then to pray for the needs of the Church and human kind, giving thanks for blessings and graces received. It was a revelation also to have silence for half of a meal and to be woken in the morning by the melodic strains of J. S. Bach played over a speaker in the corridor of our rooms.

These three weeks with the opportunity to enter some of the beautiful gothic churches and holy places of France broke for me that sense of isolation and separateness which has been such a mark of English religious practice since the time of the Reformation. I returned to Alnmouth with my renewed hope and my horizons considerably expanded.

This visit to France was followed by a cycle tour in Belgium in which we visited the Abbey of S. André just outside Bruges and the Benedictine community at Chevetogne founded by Dom Lambert Beauduin with the particular concern for the reconciliation of the churches. Here there were two churches, one for the celebration of the Latin rite and the other with its walls covered with painted frescoes in the Byzantine style and an iconostasis for the celebration of the liturgies of the eastern orthodox churches. The community was divided to serve the two churches, though all the monks were of the Roman obedience. In this way a deep appreciation and sympathy for the Orthodox was sustained and conferences were held for the enlargement of understanding in the search for reconciliation. At Chevetogne I was ill and had to spend several days in bed with a fever. The concern of the monks and the days of recuperation gave a further opportunity to enter into the mystical tradition of Orthodox worship. The guestmaster was kindness itself, taking an interest in the development of my vocation. He later paid us a visit at Alnmouth and went to bathe in the sea.

In the summer of 1968 Professor Cross called the second conference of Anglican religious at Christ Church Oxford to consider how our communities might be adapted to the changes in the modern world. Br. Edward attended from the Alnmouth Friary, and we were lodged in rooms in Pembroke College and crossed the road to hear the main speakers in the great hall of Christ Church. At this distance two personal opportunities remain clear in my mind. The first was a brief walk up and down a lawn in Pembroke College with Dom Jean Leclercq in which he urged us to look out from England to what was happening in the rest of the monastic world. The second and more important was the address given by Mother Mary Clare of the Sisters of the Love of God and her subsequent invitation to visit their Mother House at Fairacres in Oxford. This was to lead to many years of fruitful dialogue and discernment of my vocation under her guidance as a spiritual mother until her death in 1988.

After the conference I returned to Alnmouth to resume my position with the Postulants. As the months passed I found there were still things I had to learn about myself in relation to the Society and I realised that I was getting more and more out of step with the norms of its community life. So I resigned my responsibilities and not long after I was asked if I would like to go as Novice Master to the Order of S. Paul at Alton which was going through a difficult period. This marginalisation I declined and I found myself in the library cataloguing the books, though with plenty of time to read undisturbed.

It was the practice of the house to invite clergy from the area to give lectures on biblical and other theological subjects to the brothers who gathered in the panelled library of the house with its striking and memorable view of the sea and sands of Alnmouth. From a side window we were able to see the trains passing up and down the east coast main line between London and Edinburgh. Two of these lecturers were of important assistance to me. Fr. Alan Carefull, the Vicar of S. John’s Church in Newcastle, was a great believer in the necessity of contemplative life for the well being of the church. To me he gave encouragement and later when he was Administrator of the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, I made a pilgrimage to that holy place to ask the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mother for her support in the foundation of the Hermitage at Shepherds Law.

Canon Arthur Couratin was a noted liturgist and for many years he had been the Principal of S. Stephen’s House at Oxford, but by now he was a Canon of Durham Cathedral. [He] came to talk to us about the genesis of the new eucharistic liturgy then being introduced to the Church of England. He took me for a walk along the heights above the sea at Alnmouth and heard me out. In his direct fashion he was good enough to tell the Guardian that it was probable that I would leave the Society if my vocation to contemplative life was not recognised. Such was the beginning of the opening of the door which led to my return to Glasshampton after the celebration of the Easter of 1969. It was understood that I would go there with a view to developing a stability of life in the Monastery and I was given a cell in one of the new rooms which had been formed in the tower above the chapel. Here I remember praying before an icon of the Virgin.

During the summer of 1969 a General Chapter was held by the new Minister of the Society at Hilfield. In the course of that week it was revealed not only that my own outlook was not generally acceptable within the Society, but also that there was a contest for dominance between the Minister and the Novice Master at Glasshampton who had arranged for my return to the monastery. We were fast approaching a critical juncture.

But before this time arrived the Novice Master sent me off on a visit to the Orthodox monasteries of Mount Athos. First I went to renew my contacts with the monks at Chevetogne. Then by train and hitchhiking I crossed Germany to arrive in Vienna. Here I boarded the Balkan Express and after two nights I arrived in Thessalonika where it was necessary to apply for the permit to visit the Holy Mountain. The next day I took the morning bus for Ouranopolis. Here the road ended and we went by boat along the Athos peninsula calling at various monasteries until we reached the port of Dafni where I learnt that the bus which was to take us to the monastic capital in order to register our presence was out of order. At this point I was rescued by a group of Cistercian monks from the Abbey of Mont-des-Cats close to the Belgian border in northern France. I was befriended by a monk whom I met again some years later and discovered that he was Dom André Louf the young abbot of the Monastery.

I spent some ten days on the mountain staying each night at a different monastery and walking during the day along the narrow paths and mule tracks to the next place of rest and refreshment. In the evenings and early in the morning I answered the call to attend the lengthy liturgies in the church. Towards the end of my time I climbed to the summit of the mountain and visited some of the little hermitages and sketes at the end of the peninsula.

What were the lessons I learnt from one of the most important pilgrimages of my life? In the first place I was struck by the all prevailing silence of the mountain and how quickly things returned to silence if it was broken by the occasional noise of an engine or by a passing boat. Then on entering a church the profound stillness of many years of prayer enveloped me with an almost tangible presence. I was exhausted by the length of the liturgies, but on waking once from sleep propped in one of the tall stalls, I became aware of the reality of the prayer of the old bearded monks and I realised they were doing the one thing that was necessarily human. They were calling upon God and thus expressing that relationship of love for God with which human beings have been endowed. I have never forgotten that experience which affirmed for me the truth that we are not fully human unless we express our relationship with God.

In my religious formation I had become accustomed to the formality of English religion and more especially to the Latin tradition of religious life. All things were to be done decently and in order. If not formally Jansenist there was a hint of a less than human attitude in some of the customs which related to silence and enclosure. Here I was amazed to find monks shopping and buying provisions and going about in ways that were not compatible with my limited concepts of religious life. For in spite of this seemingly informal manner it was obvious that there was a very real stillness and presence of prayer. Here was a way of life that was contemplative yet so different from my previous understanding.

The third lesson that I learnt was entirely unexpected and I did not understand it until it was explained to me by the Guest Master monk at Chevetogne the following year. I went to see where the hermits lived in the rocky fastness at the extremity of the peninsula. Looking down the cliffs to the sea far below where the way required one to hang on to chains I felt a feeling of sickness and revulsion that men should choose to live in such places. At Chevetogne Fr. Theodore told me that I had found the secret of Mount Athos, that the hermits chose to live in places where death stalked and where they were close to the Resurrection. It was an expression of Holy Saturday, the day of the tomb in which the body of the Lord was placed, and where the miracle of the Resurrection from the Dead was wrought. So by faith the monks wished to be close to the eternal life promised in the Gospel.

On my way home I passed through Constantinople and Rome visiting the great church of Santa Sophia now sadly a museum where prayer was forbidden and S. Peter’s in Rome built over the tomb of the Apostle.

Back at Glasshampton it was not long before the rupture. There was a meeting between the Minister and the Novice Master in which I had found myself in the middle not knowing what to do. Fr. Hugh departed for Zurich and the end of his religious life. With the arrival of his replacement as Guardian I soon found myself in a minority of one. It became increasingly clear that I would not have the necessary understanding and support to continue in a more contemplative way. After consultation with Mother Mary Clare she advised that no decision should be made until after Easter the following year. In the meantime I was to prepare a paper on the Franciscan tradition of contemplative life. This occupied me during the winter months.

With the changes in the liturgical prayer, the Monastery was brought into line with the other houses of the community. The seven fold office, and with it much of the seasonal variations which marked the progress of the liturgical year, was abandoned and replaced by a simplified fourfold office designed for use by brothers busy with pastoral duties. Much of the tradition of plainsong melodies and hymns for the different seasons was dismantled and lost.

By the time of my next visit to Mother Mary Clare I had reached the point of knowing that I would have to leave Glasshampton and find some other place in which to live. This was agreed by mother Mary Clare and I made an approach to the community to allow me to do this with the hope that this would be considered at the Pentecost Chapter of the Society. I remember a stormy meeting with the Minister when it was proposed to delay this consideration until the autumn because of the pressure of other business.

I had to find somewhere to live, but first it seemed wise to see for myself the places in Italy that had been chosen by the early friars as suitable places for withdrawal into the desert. So I set out again for the continent and travelled by Chevetogne and Zurich to Florence where I had been bidden to stay with the monks of San Miniato al Monte in order to visit the grave of a brother of the Society who had unexpectedly died in Italy and had been buried in the monks’ cemetery.

On my return from Italy I had some intention and understanding of why particular places had been chosen for prayer by the early Franciscan brothers. Such places were remote but not overly inaccessible and frequently about one hour’s walk from a place of habitation. They were usually but not always in lofty places where there were rocks or a cave. Sometimes there was the stillness of a forest, or the sound of water falling in a nearby cave. A solitary hermitage seemed to attract people, so in the course of time some of the more popular ones became surrounded by houses and other amenities for those who came to visit.

Could such a place be found in England and more importantly would it be available for habitation? I started my search at Brompton Regis close to Exmoor where I knew the local vicar and then went to see an isolated church on Wenlock Edge. Some enquiries were made for me in the neighbourhood of Barnard Castle and then I went to Northumberland to see if anything could be found in the neighbourhood of the Alnmouth Friary. The curate of Eglingham took me around in his car to search for a property. One afternoon I saw some buildings perched on a hill above the road. I was told it was a ruined shepherd’s cottage and not worth a visit. However I felt the need to see for myself so we climbed the steep rise and were rewarded with a magnificent view of the Cheviots with the Breamish valley stretching away towards the Tweed and the hills rising the other side of the Scottish border. The building appeared to be the remains of a folly with two arcades of three arches each terminating in a very ruined pavillion. Whatever had been in the centre of the arcade had disappeared. Behind stretched the remains of other buildings. When I rounded the corner of a wall I found myself in something like a sheltered courtyard and I immediately felt that I had found the place I was looking for. But nowhere was any part remotely inhabitable. All the roofs had completely disappeared, the walls broken down and much of the better stone had been taken for use elsewhere. I concluded that such a place was beyond the bounds of possibility and sought to dismiss it from my mind. Back at the Friary a visiting Sister from Australia said some words which gave courage and I ventured a second visit to Shepherds Law to take photographs and make a more detailed survey of the site. There were no services or indication of the water supply though what looked like a farmyard pond was close by. On the north side were a few ancient ash and elm trees, the remains of a wind break planted long ago.

Through my visits to the Sisters of the Love of God at Fairacres I had been invited to spend a week with Canon Derwas Chitty and his wife in a house on Bardsea Island off the tip of the Llŷn peninsula with a view to deciding whether this was a place to settle. The houses had been rebuilt in the nineteenth century and though most of them were now used as holiday lets during the summer months, there was still a farmer and his family together with a bird observatory manned by volunteers. At the tip of the island there was a lighthouse with a battery of electric foghorns which made a fearsome bleat whenever the island was shrouded in mist. Once a week and if the sea was calm a boat came over from the mainland which was hidden from view by the rise of the land behind the houses. At the foot of the hill there was a disused Victorian chapel which was still in reasonable repair. Close by were a few scanty remains of a medieval church. The island was renowned as the dwelling place of many hermits in previous centuries and recently one of the Fairacres sisters had come to live on the island in the piggery of one of the farms. At first sister Helen Mary spent only the summer months, but later she was able to live all the year round on the island.

During the week of my visit I made enquiries around the island and came to the conclusion that one of the outhouses of the farm where we were staying might make a suitable hermitage. My most vivid memory is the sound of the Canon and his wife saying Mattins together in bed before breakfast each day.

On my return to the mainland I had to prepare an appreciation of the places I had seen in order to make a submission to the Chapter of the Society which was to meet early in October. I was also obliged to consider a site recommended to my by the community. This turned out to be the crumbled remains of a medieval hermitage in a farmyard in the Piddle valley not far from the Friary. It had been preserved by the local archaeological society who had had a Dutch barn erected over the site. One brief inspection was enough to confirm that this was not a possibility.

In writing my paper it was obvious that no one site was perfectly suited, and therefore I had to choose the best that was available. In the end this meant Shepherds Law even though it had no habitable building. I was encouraged to this view when I received in a parcel a mason’s trowel, set square, plumbline and measure. A sign that I was to set to and build a house from the piles of stone that remained at Shepherds Law.

With the help of the sisters at Fairacres the paper was prepared for the consideration of the Chapter. When the time came I stood outside the door while the discussion was in progress and from time to time one or two of the brothers would emerge to ask me questions. The decision of the Chapter was that I was allowed to find employment in order to pay for the Hermitage. I think in the mind of the Chapter about £800 was considered a suitable sum. Son the next stage of this pilgrimage in faith was to find a job. But what was I to do? After first thinking of applying to be a temporary postman, Mother Mary Clare recommended that work as a hospital porter would be more suitable.

However events took a hand in deciding the way. First it was necessary to apply to the owner of Shepherds Law to discover if he would look with favour on a request to live at Shepherds Law. But before this could be arranged I was introduced to a French Capuchin Friar who was staying with the brothers at Hilfield. To my great surprise he suggested that we should enter some sort of twinning arrangement with a hermitage in England and France and that we should have an ecumenical partnership of praying for Christian unity and more particularly for reconciliation between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.

Back in Northumberland I went to see the vicar of Eglingham who was also Archdeacon of Lindisfarne. He after some prudent enquiries gave his full support and paved the way for my introduction to Ralph Carr-Ellison the owner of Shepherds Law. The land had recently been sold to him by Mrs Juliet Bewicke a devout church lady who lived at Eglingham Hall. On the afternoon on the day fixed for the meeting I went with the Guardian of the Alnmouth Friary and the Archdeacon and we were shown into the smoking room of Hedgeley Hall by the butler. The Archdeacon and I sat in silence while a long conversation ensued between the Colonel and Br. Edward taking in acquaintances and friends whom they had in common. It turned out that they had a relative in common, a certain Cynthia, who I later learnt was the Duchess of Grafton. After a while the Colonel said he had read the paper which I had prepared for him and that he approved of the proposals of Shepherds Law becoming a place of prayer for Christian unity subject to the necessary planning permissions and that the details could be worked out with his agent. Tea was then served by the butler and we all went in the estate Land Rover to look over Shepherds Law.

The next step was taken when Br Edward met the Chairman of the District Council for tea at the local golf club. The upshot of this talk smoothed the way for planning permission subject to an assurance that there would be proper drains. After that I was introduced to Mr Cahill, the principal partner of the firm of architects who undertook, free of charge, to have a plan drawn up for the rebuilding of what had once been the cottage at Shepherds Law. Next came the visit of the Minister of the Society to see Shepherds Law. On previous occasions I had only seen the ruins in the warmth of summer sun. But on this day in October there was a biting cold wind, which made me fear that I had made a very foolish choice. The Minister said little, but I guessed he was wondering if I would persevere with my dreams.

With these preliminaries completed I returned to Glasshampton and prepared to move to the Society’s house in the East End of London. This was at Balaam Street in Plaistow and had once belonged to the Society of the Divine Compassion, the Franciscan Society of which Fr. William had been Superior before the emergence of his contemplative vocation. Here in due course I obtained work as an Auxiliary in the nearby Samson Street hospital. This was an old Victorian building which I believe had formerly been a work house. I was placed in a ward for old men who had heart attacks and strokes and my duties were to assist with the washing and feeding of these men, making their beds and running such errands as the sister required. Generally speaking it was only by death that the men left this ward. For the first time in my life death became familiar to me as we closed the curtains around the bed, washed the body and wheeled it to the mortuary. There was no chapel in the hospital and visits from the clergy were rare indeed. Before long I learnt that my ministry was one of gentleness of touch and patience with infirmities. I remember old men with bodies deeply scarred by wounds received in the First World War, those who were partially paralysed with strokes and those with huge sores marking the time they had lain in bed. Some were gruff and irritable but most died quietly and with resignation. There were difficulties with an old rabbi from Eastern Europe who wandered about the ward and I recall the shock I received seeing a look of horror and fear in the features of a man who had recently died. There was always silence in the ward when someone passed away, until one of the men returned the ward to daily life with a witty comment. In those days people lived not far from the hospital, so that relatives and friends were constant and frequent visitors.

During this time at the hospital I had to go to Northumberland to attend to matters concerning Shepherds Law. The architect’s first drawing was not acceptable and was not unlike the exterior of a public convenience. The second attempt with a spire on top of the chapel, looking not unlike a Skylon was vetoed by the Colonel. When it was discovered that the cost was likely to be in the region of £2000 instead of the £800 initially accepted there was a rumpus within the Society. In time Shepherds Law became Br. Harold’s country cottage.

While in Northumberland Frère Jean Claude came to see the proposed site of the Hermitage and we held a vigil of prayer in the church at Eglingham asking that God would look upon our endeavours with his blessing of favour and protection. I produced a form of service for this Vigil and distributed it among friends so that they might join us in prayer as their time allowed.

In our discussions it soon became apparent that if we were going to form an ecumenical partnership it would be necessary for me to visit Frère Jean Claude’s Province in France. So my time at the hospital was cut short and the money I had earnt went to pay the expenses of this journey.

At the Alnmouth Friary I began to gather together such things as I would need to live at Shepherds Law and placed them in the Mission caravan which stood outside the front of the house. It had once belonged to the Company of S. Francis when they lived at the Durham diocese retreat house in Low Fell. The caravan was loaned for my use on the understanding that it should be available for the northern camp at Budle Bay later in the summer. On Good Friday I went to Shepherds Law for a few hours and remember the stillness and warmth of the sun on that day.

After the celebration of the Easter Vigil Br. Nathaniel towed the caravan to Shepherds Law and positioned it within the walls. Then he left me alone to begin my life as a hermit. My first reaction was one of panic and that I had made a terrible mistake. What was I to do? Further thought suggested that a cup of tea might be right and so I began my life at Shepherds Law. To begin with there was no water so that every day I had to descend to the roadside and fill a small milk churn from a cattle trough and carry it back to the hermitage. The Archdeacon lent me a bicycle so that I could go down to the church in Edlingham for the celebration of the Eucharist on Fridays and Sundays. It was not long before a pattern of Mass, Bath and Breakfast began to be established followed by a walk for Rory the vicarage dog. On Sundays we would go to a celebration of a parish communion at a little isolated Norman chapel at Old Bewick about three miles from the village and once a month there was a parish celebration at Eglingham with hymns. At this service I would serve the Archdeacon at the altar and assist with the communion cup. From time to time on other Sundays, if the Archdeacon was preaching elsewhere, it fell to me to conduct Mattins at 11 am which was attended by a few of the gentry. Occasionally I would attend evensong as well. This was at 6 pm in the summer months and at 3.30 in the winter, a relic of a wartime arrangement as there were no blackout curtains in the church.

Little by little, by trial and error a way of life was established. In those days milk and bread could be delivered to my roadside gate and the postman agreed to leave my letters there rather than climb up the hill to the caravan. Before long a Tertiary had provided me with a box in which articles for the Hermitage could be left. Basic foods could be obtained at the Post Office in Eglingham, while in Glanton, a village on the other side of the main road, there were no less than five shops and a branch of Lloyds Bank which was open for four hours on one day of the week. Most necessary things could therefore be obtained in Glanton for there was a flourishing grocery store and a general hardware shop which was a warren of shelves, alcoves, back regions and attics. There in the course of time I bought a tin bath, two bicycles and crockery as well as such regular items as toothpaste, batteries and paraffin. The shop also serviced television sets, sold petrol and charged accumulators.

Once a week a Brother came from Alnmouth with a box of provisions and a not too reliable laundry service was set up. On one occasion the car was stolen from the Alnmouth Friary and with it went my washing which was never recovered.

A Tertiary whose business had a lorry which made regular journeys from the Midlands to Tyneside offered his assistance and whole lot of scaffolding and other building materials which were no longer required at Glasshampton were brought to Shepherds Law. One day I attended an auction of surplus building materials and returned to Shepherds Law laden with a selection of buckets, shovels, corrugated iron, mason’s chisels and a set of hair clippers.

The architect sent his surveyor to examine the remains of the cottage, and it was decided that the old walls had to be taken down to ground level and then rebuilt in the traditional manner with a damp course. This work of dusty demolition required the first months at Shepherds Law. Then in August when the caravan went away to the summer camp at Budle Bay I went to lodge in the curate’s house in Eglingham while he and his family were away on holiday. Each day I bicycled up to Shepherds Law and began the work of excavating a pit for the septic tank which the District Council required for the drains. On the return of the curate from his holiday I was offered the hospitality of the neighbouring weekend cottage. Here one of the sons of the family began his career as a quantity surveyor by calculating the number of bricks that would be required to line the septic tank.

In September Br. Nathaniel came to lay the drains and we were assisted by two unemployed youths who had been staying at the Friary. At the same time one of the estate workers came with a digger to excavate trenches for the drains and a connection to the main water supply which ran from an underground cistern at the top of the rise beyond Shepherds Law (water free of charge). By the end of the month there was a stand pipe for water and a set of drains for the Hermitage, though these could not be brought into use until the house was habitable. For some years yet the sanitation of the Hermitage depended upon a slop bucket and a portable Elsan chemical toilet. Fortunately I had had experience of this staying as a child with my aunt in the Worcestershire countryside. In any case the arrangements were far more congenial than those which obtained at the beginning of the French Hermitage.

During the summer months Frère Jean Claude paid a further visit to Shepherds Law together with one of his superiors. At this time contacts were made with the Catholic bishop in Newcastle and the Secretariat for Unity in Rome was made aware of our proposals for the ecumenical relationship. We were required to give an assurance that there would be no inter communion. I had also been asked by the French if it were possible to move to another Catholic diocese, for at that time Hexham and Newcastle had the reputation of being the most conservative in England. Fortunately this was not possible and over the years it has proved to be a very considerable blessing.

With her habitual kindness and generosity Mrs Bewicke the lady who lived at Eglingham Hall invited my brother and sister in law to stay for a few days. During this time my brother made a little shed for bicycles which we sited in a disused quarry close to the road, thus eliminating a steep climb up to the Hermitage over rough ground.

In that first year the snow came early during November. I recall the Archdeacon coming to fetch me to spend the night in the vicarage chiding me for my foolishness. However with the farmer’s assistance we surrounded the caravan with bales of straw and I was able to continue living at Shepherds Law until Christmas. This certainly helped to insulate me from the cold winds and frost, but in time the bales attracted rats, so we did not repeat this method. In any case by the following winter the accommodation at Shepherds Law was of a more substantial nature.

After the celebration of Christmas I stored the contents of the caravan in the neighbouring cottage and the caravan was towed to shelter in a Dutch barn until the spring.

Once again I went back to work in the Samson Street hospital for several weeks, but this time on a voluntary basis until I set off for my second visit to the Capuchins of the Paris Province.

1 [Charles Walker, ed.], The Ritual Reason Why (London, 1867); Percy Dearmer, The Parson’s Handbook (London: Grant Richards, 1899); Ritual Notes on the Order of Divine Service (3rd edn, Oxford: Mowbray, 1895) [ed.].