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MOUNT ST BERNARDS ABBEY

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A Cistercian monastery and reformatory, founded in 1835; it became a guest house in 1844 when replaced by the new monastery, then a reformatory in 1856, it closed down in 1885 and was demolished.

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(Sited to SK 45801555 from O.S. 6" 1887)

Mount St Bernards Abbey in the Charnwood Forest was the first
permanent Post Reformation monastery to be founded in England. The
monks, of the Cistercian order, had the responsibilities of running
the largest reformatory in the country put upon them by their abbott in 1856. The inmates were youths from the Irish community in Liverpool, some of the roughest people around. Their rebellious behaviour became too much for the monks and local community to cope with and the reformatory closed down in 1885. The ruins can be seen some half mile northwest of the present Abbey. (1)

Mount St. Bernard's Reformatory (Disused). (2)

Founded in 1835, the idea came from Ambrose Lisle March Phillips of
Grace Dieu Manor who bought and donated the land. His own
architect at Grace Dieu, William Rialton, designed a little Tudor-
style monastery which opened in 1837. When it was replaced by the new monastery, (SK 41 NE 11), in 1844, it was used as a grange for guests until 1856 when it became the reformatory (some of which survives). (3)

SOURCE TEXT

(1) General reference

Trans Leicestershire Archaeol Hist Soc 51 1975-76 p 51-2

(2) General reference

O.S. 6" Leics XVII S.W. 1887

(3) General reference

Pevsner N and Williams E 1984 Bldgs of Eng Leicestershire and Rutland Penguin: London 323

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MOUNT ST BERNARDS ABBEY
CHARLEY

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Cistercian monastery, founded in 1839, opened in 1844. Designed by Pugin. It replaced an earlier monastery, SK 41 NE 12.

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