Saint Michael's Abbey ( French: ''Abbaye Saint-Michel'') is a

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The con ...

in Farnborough,

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

, England. The small community is known for its liturgy (which is sung in Latin and

Gregorian chant Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, plainchant, a form of monophony, monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song in Latin (and occasionally Greek (language), Greek) of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed ma ...

), its pipe organ, and its liturgical publishing and printing. This abbey is also known for enshrining a Pontifically crowned image of Saint Joseph. Public tours of the abbey take place every Saturday at 3pm, with the visit comprising a tour of the church and a visit to the crypt.

History

Following the fall of the

Second French Empire The Second French Empire (; officially the French Empire, ), was the 18-year Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 14 January 1852 to 27 October 1870, between the Second and the Third Republic of France. Historians in the 1930 ...

in 1870,

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

(1808–1873), his wife

Empress Eugénie An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother (empr ...

(1826–1920) and their son the Prince Imperial (1856–1879) were exiled from France and took up residence in England at Camden Place in Chislehurst, Kent, where Napoleon III died in 1873. He was originally buried at St Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Chislehurst. Following the death of the Prince Imperial in 1879, the grief-stricken Empress Eugénie set about establishing a monument to her family. She founded the Abbey in 1881 as a mausoleum for her husband and son, wishing that the burial site should be a place of prayer and silence. The Abbey included an Imperial Crypt, modelled on the crypt of

Saint-Denis basilica The Basilica of Saint-Denis (french: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, links=no, now formally known as the ) is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, a northern ...

near

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, where the Emperor had originally desired to be buried. Empress Eugénie was later buried alongside her husband and son. All three rest in granite

sarcophagi A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...

that were provided by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

. File:The Sarcophagus of Emperor Napoleon III of France (geograph 3835255).jpg, The sarcophagus of Emperor

File:Eugenie tomb.jpg, The sarcophagus of

File:Sarcophagus of Napoleon, Prince Imperial (geograph 3835254).jpg, The sarcophagus of Napoléon, Prince Imperial The Abbey Church itself was designed in an eclectic

flamboyant Flamboyant (from ) is a form of late Gothic architecture that developed in Europe in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, from around 1375 to the mid-16th century. It is characterized by double curves forming flame-like shapes in the bar-tr ...

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style by the renowned French architect

Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur Hippolyte Destailleur (27 September 1822 – 17 November 1893) was a French architect, interior designer, and collector. He is noted for his designs and restoration work for great châteaux in France and in England, as well as his collection of bo ...

, and it contains the thigh bone of St Alban, the largest relic of the saint in England. After the church and monastery were founded, they were initially administered by Premonstratensian Canons. In 1895, the Empress replaced them with French Benedictine monks from St Peter's Abbey, Solesmes. Dom Fernand Cabrol, a noted scholar, became prior and afterwards abbot (1903), remaining in the post until his death in 1937. Dom

Henri Leclercq Henri Leclercq (4 December 1869 – 23 March 1945) was a French Catholic priest, theologian, and church historian who spent most of his adult life in the United Kingdom. Biography Born in Tournai, Belgium, Leclercq attended the Catholic school t ...

and a small group of French monks joined the house at the same time, and Leclercq and Cabrol collaborated for many years in scholarly endeavours. The

medievalist The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vo ...

and liturgist Dom

André Wilmart Dom André Wilmart O.S.B. (1876 – 21 April 1941 Paris) was a French Benedictine medievalist and liturgist, who spent most of his career at St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough. He was a leading expert on medieval spirituality in the decades be ...

(1876–1941) was a monk of the abbey. The church's present two-manual organ was installed in 1905, built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll & Company. The instrument's origins are shrouded in mystery. Although installed after the death of Cavaillé-Coll, it bears his name rather than that of his son-in-law Mutin, and the internal works are of a quality which identifies this model with the highest standards of workmanship of the high days of that company. The community, once famed for its scholarly writing and musical tradition of

s, became depleted in number by 1947, and most of the remaining monks dispersed to houses of the Solesmes Congregation, in particular

Quarr Abbey Quarr Abbey (French: ''Abbaye Notre-Dame de Quarr'') is a monastery between the villages of Binstead and Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight in southern England. The name is pronounced as "Kwor" (rhyming with "for"). It belongs to the Catholi ...

. Farnborough was once more resettled, this time by a small group of English monks from

Prinknash Abbey Prinknash Abbey (pronounced locally variously as "Prinidge/Prinnish") (IPA: ) is a Roman Catholic monastery in the Vale of Gloucester in the Diocese of Clifton, near the village of Cranham. It belongs to the English Province of the Subiaco Cas ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

. The last French monk, Dom Leopold Zerr, for many years the abbey's organist, died in 1956. In 2006, the community elected the first English Abbot of Farnborough—the Right Reverend Dom Cuthbert Brogan.

Catholic National Library

The Catholic Central Library was set up by the

Catholic Truth Society Catholic Truth Society (CTS) is a body that prints and publishes Catholic literature, including apologetics, prayerbooks, spiritual reading, and lives of saints. It is based in London, the United Kingdom. The CTS had been founded in 1868 by ...

after the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. It was maintained for many years by the Graymoor Friars in Westminster until they were obliged to withdraw. It moved into the care of St Michael's Abbey in 2007 for a probationary period pending a final decision on its future. In 2007, it was renamed the Catholic National Library, and it is one of the finest collections of Roman Catholic books in England. In 2015, the collection was relocated to

Durham University Library The Durham University Library is the centrally administered library of Durham University in England. It was founded in January 1833 at Palace Green by a 160 volume donation by the then Bishop of Durham, William Van Mildert, and now holds over ...

National Shrine to Saint Joseph

The ''National Shrine to Saint Joseph'' at Saint Michael's Abbey is cared for by the monks of Farnborough. A statue of Saint Joseph in a side chapel to the right of the high altar in the monastery church initially belonged to the

Mill Hill Fathers The Mill Hill Missionaries (MHM), officially known as the Saint Joseph's Missionary Society of Mill Hill ( la, Societas Missionariorum S. Ioseph de Mill Hill), is a Catholic society of apostolic life founded in 1866 by Herbert Alfred Vaughan, MHM ...

, founded by

Herbert Vaughan Herbert Alfred Henry Vaughan, MHM (15 April 1832 – 19 June 1903) was an English prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1892 until his death in 1903, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1893. He was th ...

in 1866. At Vaughn's request, Pope Pius IX granted a

canonical coronation A canonical coronation ( la, Coronatio Canonica) is a pious institutional act of the pope, duly expressed in a bull, in which the pope bestows the right to impose an ornamental crown, a diadem or an aureole to an image of Christ, Mary or J ...

for the statue, conducted by Henry Cardinal Manning on the occasion of the dedication of the chapel of St Joseph's College on 13 April 1874.Turley, K.V., "Farnborough is England's National Shrine to St. Joseph", ''National Catholic Register'', April 30, 2018
/ref> The Missionary Institute of London was established in the late 1960s to consolidate training facilities for the various mission societies in Britain. St Joseph's College was closed in 2006."History", Mill Hill Missionaries
accessed 6 January 2016. The property was subsequently sold, and the Society relocated to Maidenhead. Farnborough Abbey agreed to receive the Shrine's statue and altars, and the present National Shrine was erected in 2008. (A second statue of St Joseph, formerly at the entrance to the Mill Hill property, was sent to the shrine of

Our Lady of Walsingham Our Lady of Walsingham is a title of Mary, mother of Jesus venerated by Catholics, Western Rite Orthodox Christians, and some Anglicans associated with the Marian apparitions to Richeldis de Faverches, a pious English noblewoman, in 1061 in t ...

References

External links

*
Website about the Cavaillé-Coll organ in Farnborough Abbey
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Farnborough, St Michael Religious organizations established in 1881 Benedictine monasteries in England Abbeys in Hampshire Grade I listed churches in Hampshire Farnborough, Hampshire 1881 establishments in England 19th-century Christian monasteries Burial sites of the House of Bonaparte 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom