Quarr

Hot start to our first full day in Brading, so I rested indoors while BH tried the table top sale in the village hall.

We decided that there was plenty of shade to be had under the trees of Quarr Abbey, so that was our destination for the afternoon, seemingly not visited since 2019, as noticed at reference 1. One year missed because of the plague, the other year missed because we just didn't make it.

Parked up there and strolled down the shady path, probably once a minor road, to Fishbourne Lane, where we found a roundabout containing the splendid tree snapped (by Street View) above. Complete with an old-style wrought iron seat circling the base of the trunk. A fine place to take the shade. We also had a fine Scots Pine, suspected for a few seconds of being a Wellingtonia.

From there to the seaside, where we were entertained by visiting ferries and a couple of cute cats, trained to the lead. There was also a distant mono-hull with a tall black main sail and no fore sail that I could see, so a modern racer rather than some black sailed heritage item. Working up for Cowes week?

Back down the shady path.

To find one pig's way of dealing with the heat.

And another.

And so to the impressive brickwork of the abbey itself, built just before the First World War on behalf of an exiled community of French monks, then at Appuldurcombe House. No idea where the money to pay the builders came from. Very roughly contemporary with the rather different Buckfast Abbey in Devon, a fairly recent visit to which being noticed at reference 3. On the other hand, there must have been hundreds of red brick churches, of all flavours, built between, say, 1850 and 1950. See reference 4 for one of them.

First stop the tea room for tea and cake. 

Second stop round the back to what I think they call the Pilgrims' Chapel. A rather impressive place, with a quiet not unlike that of St. Faith's Chapel at Westminster Abbey, noticed in these pages from time to time. Curiously, the relatively small number of seats were placed in such a way that you were not facing one of the various altars available. I supposed one was supposed to kneel for that purpose, which I declined to do.

On this occasion I was not squeamish about using my camera - not that anyone else was there - although the resultant snap does not do the place justice. It will, however, serve me as an aide-memoire.

From there to the Abbey Church, also rather impressive, in a quite different way. I was tempted to stay for Vespers, starting perhaps 15 minutes later, but instead opted to head home for the gammon already cooked for the occasion. With boiled vegetables, naturally.

And then, there is my slight squeamishness about attending a service in such a place, one among a probably small number of others. Not my place as an atheist - although Catholics do seem to be very relaxed about this sort of thing. What is important thing is being there, close to their Lord.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/08/wash-up-from-other-island.html.

Reference 2: https://quarrabbey.org/. Benedictine.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-rule-of-st-benedict.html. Ecclesiastically speaking a rather chequered history, starting Benedictine, then Savignac, then Cistercian and now Benedictine again.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/07/to-chippenham.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/06/vespers.html. A rather different sort of Vespers to the one that would have been offered at Quarr.