Benedictine Bath – Monday 6th – Friday 10th July

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bath, benedictine

Downside Monastery Archives and Library along with the Monastic Community would like to invite you all to our week long series of events: ‘Benedictine Bath’

When people think of Bath’s history, they immediately think Roman or Georgian, but the Benedictines have had a presence in Bath for over a thousand years.

As part of our celebration of Bath’s Benedictine history and heritage, there will be:

• An exhibition in Bath Abbey including pre Reformation books and manuscripts from the Monastery Library
• Vespers and Benediction in St John the Evangelist Church on Wednesday 8^th July at 7 pm including monastic chant by the monastic community. This will be a return to St Johns, built by Downside in 1863, for the monastic community, since the monks left in 1932.
• Walking tours of the Benedictine sites of Bath leaving Bath Abbey every day at 11 am and 2.30 pm.
• A conference at the Guildhall featuring papers by Abbot Aidan Bellenger and Canon Anthony Harding.

Please see the attached poster for more details.

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Battle Diary (Saint Laurence Papers)

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ampleforth, benedictine, forbes, guards brigade, italian campaign, WW2

Always to be found where the battle was fiercest or the shelling most intense, giving courage to the wounded and dying, Fr George Forbes, former Grenadier Guards officer, a Benedictine monk of Ampleforth, in wartime Chaplain to the Guards Brigade, tells his own experience of the Italian campaign of 1943-45, and adds some thoughtful comments in an Appendix on the distressing handover of prisoners to the Russians and Jugoslavs at the end of World War 2 – ‘one of those cases when, whatever answer you give, you are bound to be wrong’. Forbes writes simply and clearly, not without humour, and gives a unique view of the front line battles fought by the men he was with for three years. Much of the fighting was in mountains up to 3000 feet high (1000 m), where ice, rain and mud were worse enemies than the German Army (which emerges with respect). Notes on the people named and an index of army terms make the book a stand-alone read.

Available from Amazon as a Kindle (or compatible device) edition. If you don’t have a Kindle there is a free app (available here) that will let you read the book on your PC