22 june 2012, night at the monastery

Friday 22nd June 2012

Quite an inspiring night yesterday, at gorton’s remarkable franciscan monastery. A pugin architectural masterpiece of the late eighteenth century, it was at its peak the centre of a whole community, but by the 1980s was deconsecrated, and by the 90s desolate and vandalised, to be turned into flats and with anything of value stolen or sold off. This included 12 remarkable statues of saints that sat high on plinths between arches, becoming mystically lit up at a certain time of day. At rock bottom though, a few remarkable people started to care, stopping the auction of the saints as garden ornaments and beginning to clean and fundraise. Year after year the volunteers grew, grants were found, a new roof enclosed the building and brick by brick, wall by wall, feature by feature, the monastery came back to life. And so almost 20 years later, last night was the final piece of the jigsaw, as in the company of the likes of joan bakewell and terry waite the saints finally came marching home. A wonderful story.