St Peter
Upper Woolhampton, Berkshire
Pretty rural church with interesting stained glass windows in West Berkshire.
The community of St. Edmund was formed in Paris in 1615 by Dom Gabriel Gifford later Archbishop of Rheims and primate of France. With his backing the community flourished. Expelled from Paris during the Revolution, the community took over the vacant buildings of the community of St Gregory's in Douai, northern France, in 1818.
Amid political upheavals around the turn of the 19th century, the French prime introduced a that 'severely curbed the influence of religious orders in France'. As a result, the community fled France in 1903 and were given the minor seminary of St Mary in Woolhampton by Bishop Cahill of Portsmouth.
The abbey church was opened in 1933 but only completed in 1993 due to financial constraints. The 1960s witnessed the building of a new monastery designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd.
In 2005, two monks returned to Douai, France to form a community there and restore the historic links to English monasticism.