#downsideabbeyarchives

An extremely fortuitous find in the archive today ties in slightly late with the Remembrance Commemorations, but is most definitely worth sharing here.

Within the school records is a box labeled Downside War Memorial, and inside were these fabulous plans of the Downside War Memorial, designed by Leonard Stokes, who also built a large portion of Downside school. Dated 1921, the memorial was unveiled on Easter Sunday, 16th April 1922 and was blessed by the Right Reverend Bishop Keatinge, an Old Gregorian.

After the Great War, 110 names were on the memorial, all Old Gregorians who had given their lives during the conflict. The stone used was Bath stone.

There is also a blueprint of the inscriptions of the names to be written on the memorial sent over by the company producing it. Another memorial to the memory of the Old Gregorians is the nave of the Abbey Church. The names are also inscribed on a plaque on the west end.

Downside has a huge quantity of architectural drawings and plans relating to both buildings which were erected and those which remain 'unexecuted.' Found recently is a plan which falls into the latter category, a design for a proposed gate lodge here at Downside by Henry Goodridge.

Goodridge was a young architect in 1817 when Dom Augustine Baines arrived from Yorkshire as the new priest in charge of the Bath Mission. Baines immediately set about renovating the Catholic chapel in Old Orchard Street, which had been the Old Theatre Royal and is now the Freemason's Lodge. To do this, he employed Goodridge to build a small private chapel and cut new windows in the walls.

Goodridge would eventually go on to create a number of well known Bath buildings including the Corridor and Beckford's Tower at Lansdown. He also designed the chapel and an adjacent dormitory here at Downside in 1823. The chapel was one of the earliest neo-Gothic buildings in the country at the time, and still stands today next to the Old House and forms part of the quad.  

Sadly, this entrance lodge never made it past the planning stage.

Mount St Benedict, Ireland.

Today, Friday 7th October, is the announcement of the winner of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Coincidentally, this week one of our volunteers has found some information relating to this momentous occasion in our archives.

In the early and middle parts of the 20th century, Downside ran a school in Ireland for Catholics named Mount St Benedict in Gorey, Wexford. The school ran from 1907 to 1925, but this Downside foundation managed to produce a future winner of the Peace Prize.

Sean Macbride (1904-1988) was born in France and educated at Mount St Benedict after his father had been executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising. Whilst there he shared a room with renowned artist Cecil Salkeld and architect Simon Leonard.

At the age of 15 Macbride left the school and joined the Irish Volunteers during the Irish Civil War. He was imprisoned by the Irish Free State for the duration of this conflict. He went on to study law at University College, Dublin before being elected to the Irish government in 1947.

Macbride became increasingly involved with human rights issues and was also part of the creation of the Council of Europe in 1949. Macbride was one of the founder members of Amnesty International in 1961, and became United Nations Commissioner for Namibia in 1973.

In 1974 he won the Nobel Peace Prize 'for efforts on the behalf of human rights'. At this time he was chairman of the International Peace Bureau and Assistant Secretary General of the UN. Besides the Peace Prize, Macbride was also the recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize and the American Medal of Justice.

In 1980 he became chairman of UNESCO until he passed away in Dublin in 1988.

On a recent trip to Dublin, the Activity Manager here at Downside made a visit to Glasnevin cemetery, which holds almost one and a half million burials. More information on the cemetery can be found at www.glasnevinmuseum.ie/ 

The cemetery is also home to a monument to all those who lost their lives during the Easter Rising of April 1916. From research conducted for another project, it was remembered that an Old Gregorian of Downside was one such man who had died in the events in Dublin. A quick search revealed his name on the memorial.

Basil Henry Worsley-Worswick was born in 1881 and came to Downside from 1894-1899. He was the younger brother of Dom Peter Worsley-Worswick, a Downside monk. After leaving Downside, he went to Oxford and then moved to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) where he was a farmer, before emigrating to Canada.

He returned from Canada just before the outbreak of the war and enlisted in the army in August 1914. Worsley-Worswick was a 2nd Lieutenant in the 2nd King Edward's Horse which was on reserve in Ireland after months of fighting in France. When the Easter Rising began, the regiment was sent to Dublin to help quell the disturbance. The death of Worsley-Worswick was a result of general confusion in the city over that period.

On the night of April 28th, a detachment of the Dublin Fusiliers was stationed at the malt house of the Guinness brewery. When an officer went to relieve the officer on duty, he was mistaken for an enemy and shot. Worsley-Worswick was in the next picket along and heard the commotion. He asked his officer to be allowed to investigate but was told to wait until morning.

Worsley-Worswick arrived at the malt house at dawn on April 29th and finding that the officer had been killed, his suspicions were aroused and when he was challenged by a sergeant of the Dublin Fusiliers, he knocked the man down. The guards, seeing this, immediately fired upon Worsley-Worswick and killed him instantly. He was 35 years old.

This tragic story highlights the confusion and panic that surrounded the city of Dublin during Easter 1916. The memorial at Glasnevin commemorates everyone who died during the Rising; Republicans, civilians and British soldiers.

Over the last few weeks we have been joined in the archive by Simon Ball, an Old Gregorian of the school here. Simon has been assisting us in the archives by working through our vast collections of architectural plans.

Many of the plans held here at Downside are 'unexecuted' in that they were never built; architect's visions never fully realized. Our collections hold designs by Pugin, Stokes, Dunn and Hansom, Garner and Giles Gilbert Scott to name a few. Some of the plans relate to things we can see here today, but the beauty in many of the drawings is that they never made it off paper.

This drawing of the organ screen here at Downside is wonderfully coloured, however the screen in the Abbey Church looks very little like the one drawn. This vision by Giles Gilbert Scott dates to 1935, and whilst the rear section of the screen is in situ today, the larger part at the front never made it to the carpenter's workshop.

Here we have a plan of how the fireplaces may have looked in the Prior's cell and his study. The plan to the left is slightly less ornate than the one for his study where he may have held meetings, hence the slight improvement in quality. This plan was by Dunn and Hansom, the architects who created the first section of the Abbey Church which was completed in 1882. The plan, from 1895, shows that their work did not finish with the opening of the Abbey Church. However, it seems that these plans were also not put into action as no fireplaces such as these exist in the monastery.

These two plans are the tip of an architectural iceberg, with the number of drawings heading into the high hundreds. Exploring them is a trip to a Downside far removed from what we see here today; an unexecuted Downside. 

In March we posted some extracts from the wartime diary of Dom Stephen Rawlinson, who was serving in Plymouth during World War II as a naval chaplain. The March 1941 bombings of Plymouth were horrific, but in late April the city was targeted again.

Monday April 21st. Mass 7.15. Met Fr Alban at 2.30 at Milbay and went shopping and had tea. Another severe air raid started at 9.40pm and went on all night. We were without gas or electricity or phones. Barracks badly damaged.

Tuesday April 22nd. Mass 7.45. Went down in morning to see Canon Gaynor thinking his church had been hit, but it had not. Went into Plymouth after lunch. Took me 2 hours and a half to get to club. All roads blocked with debris and bomb craters. Found club had all front blown out. The Hale porter was in his chair, dead from heart failure at 2.30pm. His body was taken away. Skipper turned up and took me back to ship in car. Went to sick bay for half an hour. After dinner at 9.40, a fierce air raid started and went on until 3.30am. Devonport was completely destroyed. No sleep for anyone. One bomb ten yards from ship and several incendiaries on ship, but no damage. The worst night we had had.

Wednesday April 23rd. Mass of Thanksgiving at 7.45. Fr Alban came up with Fr Catterel after lunch. Very tired after working all night in the hospital where he was very nearly killed by a bomb but escaped by being on the right side of room. Another man was killed. Heard that Keyham church had been completely burnt out and went to see Canon Gaynor who was out with Fairie. Another very bad raid started at 9.45 and went on until 2. Many bombs very close to the ship and they got the tanks of oil on other side of water about 3/4 mile away which lit up the whole place.