A report on a visit to Downside School Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Sommerset, England : 8th to 20th November 1994

Abstract

The Benedictine school at Downside in the lushy countryside of the South West of England is just a small patch of a large canvas - a canvas that is part of the history of English Catholicism since the Reformation - a history in which the Benedictine monks have been playing a major role. History The Benedictines have been concerned with education since the fifth century. The monastery is the 'schola' of divine worship. Monasteries have always been places of education because of their stability. This stability has helped in the accumulation of books throughout the years, at times when books were rare and expensive. Benedictine Abbeys as a result became centres of learning in the Dark Ages and people flocked to them because everywhere else was intellectually dry. Benedictine Abbeys thus became an oasis of learning during Europe's dark days of intellectual arid desert experience. The Benedictine community of St. Gregory the Great which runs the boarding school at Downside was founded in Douai in the Spanish Netherlands (now Northern France) in 1606 by a group of monks exiled from England because of the penal laws against Catholics. The Abbot of the nearby monastery of St. Vedast in Arras, Philip de Cavarel, helped with the project and is regarded as the principal founder of St. Gregory's. Within a few years, and certainly by 1617, English Catholics were sending their boys to St. Gregory's to be educated by the monks. In 1793, as a result of the French Revolution the monks and boys of St. Gregory' s were all imprisoned, but two years later they were allowed to go to England and were given a house at Acton Burnell, Shropshire, by Sir Edward Smythe, an Old Boy of the school. They remained there until 1814 when they moved to Downside House, the present 'Old House' which now houses the present school's administrative areas. There were thirteen boys at the school at that time [...].