St Mary's Convent

St Mary's Convent

St Mary's Convent was built for the Community of St Mary the Virgin, founded in 1848 by William John Butler and Elizabeth Lockhart. The convent grew through successive phases of construction by leading Victorian architects, creating a substantial complex of interconnected ranges and courtyards.

The original convent building was designed by G E Street in the Gothic Revival style and built in 1855–6. Street also designed the Chapel of St Mary Magdalene, constructed in 1858–61. To this core were added an east wing in 1860 and a refectory in 1866, which was extended in 1871 and altered in 1900. William Butterfield designed a noviciate wing built in 1874–8. In 1887, J L Pearson designed a larger chapel, which is separately listed and was remodelled by Sir Ninian Comper in 1923. Later additions include a guest wing of 1897, a covered cloister of 1900, and a gatehouse of 1936.

The convent is built of coursed and dressed rubble limestone with limestone ashlar dressings, tiled roofs, and stone stacks.

The plan is complex, organised around two courtyards separated by the refectory, with an extensive service area to the west. Street's north and west ranges flank the front courtyard, dating from 1855–6. The chapel of 1861 and the extended chapel of 1871–2 are also by Street. To the east of the courtyard is the wing of 1860, altered in 1900, with the refectory of 1866 to the rear. Butterfield's Noviciate wing is positioned to the rear of the courtyard block and dates from 1878. The Noviciate and Street's chapel are connected by cloisters of 1900 to Pearson's main chapel of 1887. A range of 1897 stands to the west of the front courtyard, with a gabled rear wing added in 1903. The gatehouse of 1936 stands to the front of the courtyard. The original entrance from Challow Road was in Street's south range. The current entrance is accessed through a twentieth-century covered link crossing the north courtyard.

The exterior of the ranges shares consistent characteristics across the different architects. The buildings are irregularly planned and broadly Gothic in style, unadorned, with hipped dormer windows, ashlar dressings, and one-over-one sash windows in surrounds with shaped heads and mullions occasionally formed by pilasters with simple capitals. Many windows have been replaced with casements of varying dates. The ranges have gabled roofs and flat-roofed extensions.

Street's original entrance range faces the southern courtyard. It is of two storeys and an attic with seventeenth-century style dormers beneath hips; some windows are renewed casements. The ground floor has triple lights, some with cusped heads and engaged shaft mullions, others with square bays and trefoil-headed lights. The east courtyard elevation bears the original convent entrance, marked by a statue of the Virgin and Child in a cusped niche above a moulded pointed-arch doorway. The original chapel is located on the first floor to the right of the entrance, lit beneath a tall gabled dormer with slender lancets.

Street's chapel has austere elevations to the north and south. The north elevation is lit by slender lancet windows in ashlar surrounds, whilst the south has a triple-light window. Angle buttresses define the east end, lit to the north and south by foiled roundel windows. The east window has five lights and geometrical tracery with nineteenth-century stained glass.

The former infirmary wing, defining the east side of the courtyard, is of three storeys with mullioned windows in pairs and threes with shaped heads and one-over-one sash windows. This range is incrementally extended at the east end with gabled and flat-roofed extensions and was heightened in 1900. The refectory is located to the north. Butterfield's Noviciate range is positioned further north at right angles. It is of three storeys with tall segmental-arched windows and a central gabled three-storey porch. The chapels and Noviciate are linked by cloisters with a tiled gable roof. The cloister walls are of courses of ashlar limestone in varying heights and hues, with pointed-arch windows in groups of twos and threes. An external entrance on the east side is defined by buttresses, with a four-square arched opening and double-leaf timber door with strap hinges.

The service range to the west of the front courtyard is of three storeys with irregular projecting gables and flat-roofed extensions with mullioned and transomed windows and lateral stacks. A large early-twentieth-century wing to the rear has one-light splayed windows above mullioned and transomed ground-floor windows.

The gatehouse is single-storey with an attic, constructed in rock-faced limestone with ashlar quoins and window surrounds, and encloses the south side of Street's earliest courtyard. The tiled hipped roof has a central stack. The south elevation has a projecting porch aligned with the stepped entrance to the convent, from which a covered cloister with arched openings leads around the north elevation. The windows are of sixteenth-century style with round arches and stone mullions. The main entrance is at the west end of the north window, with a solid timber door retaining the original bell pull.

The interiors of all ranges have been substantially remodelled with loss of many fixtures and fittings, including doors, staircases, and fireplaces, though some nineteenth-century elements remain, including elements of the plan-form and original joinery.

Street's principal range at the rear of the front courtyard accommodated the main entrance to the convent. The foyer retains an encaustic tiled floor and the original timber stairs with chamfered newel posts, moulded handrail, and wide flat balusters. The earliest chapel, in the south-east corner of this wing, retains some stained glass with leaded lights and ironmongery. Street's chapel was remodelled in the 1960s with a remodelled sanctuary, lowered ceiling, and modern fixtures and fittings. The Stations of the Cross by Mother Maribel are located in niches beneath deeply splayed window openings.

The east wing housed the infirmary and now has renewed staircases and modern facilities including ground-floor kitchens. The former refectory, now a library, added in 1866, retains some window shutters, wall panelling, and exposed moulded bridging beams and braces, with doors featuring strap hinges and original ironmongery. The north ranges contain the sisters' cells, which have plain fireplaces and modern fire doors. The west wing provides accommodation above a remodelled laundry, which retains its tiled walls.

The interior of the gatehouse was not inspected.