The Monastery Church, Capel-y-Ffin

16103

The Monastic Church stands on a hillside to the west of Capel-y-ffin, NE of the Monastery and detached from it.

History: The Monastery was started in 1869 by Father Ignatius (the Rev J L Lyne 1837-1908), as an Anglican Benedictine foundation in succession to Llanthony. The cloister was begun in 1870, the detached church in 1872; Charles Buckeridge was succeeded in 1873 as architect by J L Pearson. Building stopped in 1882 and the church collapsed c.1920. Acquired by Eric Gill 1924, as a Catholic self-supporting community of the Ditchling Guild.

Exterior: Only the chancel exists, in ruins. Stone, buttressed, bulging outwards at E end.

Interior: 3 bays, severe Transitional Early English. Doorways to N & S and wall-shafts for vaulting, all with trumpet capitals. 3-bay sedilia, combined aumbry & piscina, cusped heads. Cusped tomb recess(?) on N.

References: Kilvert's Diary (1870); R Haslam, Powys, 1979; H J Massingham, The Southern Marches, 1952, 144-6.

Listed for its significance in the 19th-century religious revival.