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Nashdom, also known as Nashdom Abbey, is a former
country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
and former
Anglican Benedictine There are a number of Benedictine Anglican religious orders, some of them using the name Order of St. Benedict (OSB). Just like their Roman Catholic counterparts, each abbey/priory/convent is independent of each other. The vows are not made to ...
abbey in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, England. Designed in Neo-Georgian style by architect
Edwin Lutyens Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens ( ; 29 March 1869 – 1 January 1944) was an English architect known for imaginatively adapting traditional architectural styles to the requirements of his era. He designed many English country houses, war memorials ...
, it is a Grade II*
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
. It was converted into apartments in 1997. The gardens are Grade II listed in the
National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England {{R from move ...
{{R from move ...
.


Country house


Owners

The name ''Nashdom'' is romanised Russian ( rus, Наш дом, p=naʂ dom), meaning "our home". Lutyens' clients were Prince and Princess Dolgorouki. Prince Alexis, a son of Prince Serge Dolgorouki, was formerly the chamberlain in the Russian court. In 1898 he married Frances, the only daughter and heiress of the Scottish shipping magnate Fleetwood Pellew Wilson, of Wappenham Manor, Northamptonshire. The couple's British residences included
Braemar Castle Braemar Castle is situated near the village of Braemar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is a possession of the chief of Clan Farquharson and is leased to a local charitable foundation. It is open to the public. History From the Late Middle Ages, ...
, Aberdeenshire, and a house in
Upper Grosvenor Street Upper Grosvenor Street is a one-way Georgian architecture, Georgian street in Mayfair, London, United Kingdom. It runs from the north side of the Grosvenor House Hotel (fronting Park Lane) to the south side of the London Chancery Building (f ...
, London. The Princess wanted an additional residence, for royal guests and house parties.Amery and Richardson (1981), pp. 121–2. Lutyens visited the site in July 1905, thinking it beautiful but a very difficult one for the Princess's ideal house, which he thought would cost £20,000. Her initial budget was only £6,000, and they finally agreed on a design costing £15,000. Sources differ on the house's completion date, ranging from 1908, to 1911. The Prince died, aged 68, in June 1915. Thereafter, the Princess lived in
Pyrénées-Atlantiques Pyrénées-Atlantiques (; Gascon language, Gascon Occitan language, Occitan: ''Pirenèus Atlantics''; ) is a Departments of France, department located in the Regions of France, region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine in the southwest corner of metropolitan ...
, France, where she died in August 1919, aged 69. In her will, she left Nashdom for the use of the Dolgorouki family, under the stewardship of Serge Alexandrovitch Dolgorouki, aided by her
executor An executor is someone who is responsible for executing, or following through on, an assigned task or duty. The feminine form, executrix, is sometimes used. Executor of will An executor is a legal term referring to a person named by the maker o ...
, Herbert Brisbane Ewart.


Architecture

Lutyens built the house in Neo-Georgian style, using whitewashed brick. It is one of his earliest completely neoclassical buildings. To accommodate the steeply sloping site, he built a basement level under the southwest half of the house.Butler(1984), pp. 36–7. The northwest, entrance front had an urban appearance, built tight against the road. Massive and austerely neoclassical, it had at its centre a Doric
colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
giving into the entrance porch, directly beyond which was, not the main entrance door, but access via a
wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...
gate into a semicircular courtyard. Instead, the main door was inside the porch on the left, giving access to the entrance hall. A door in the porch on the right gave access to the
service Service may refer to: Activities * Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty * Civil service, the body of employees of a government * Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a ...
quarters.Pevsner, Williamson and Brandwood (1994), pp. 210–1. The entrance hall contained two staircases. The main one, straight ahead from the door and wide, led up to the Big Room, the main room for entertaining. A second staircase, at right angles to the first and wide, led towards the suite of rooms on the garden front, via a grand landing. The landing had a wind dial on the wall, showing the wind direction superimposed on a local map. It was connected to a
weathervane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an list of weather instruments, instrument used for showing the wind direction, direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ' ...
on the roof. The southeast, garden front was much less severe than the entrance front, and has been called one of the most unusual facades of any Georgian house. Lutyens made extensive use of green-shuttered
sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...
s, spaced exceptionally close together. Along the garden front, starting from the eastern end, were a
loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...
, the Big Room, a circular drawing room fronted by a broad
bow window A bow window or compass window is a curved bay window. Like bay windows, bow windows add space to a room by projecting beyond the exterior wall of a building and provide a wider view of the garden or street outside than flush windows, but combine ...
, a glass-domed hall known as the Winter Garden, a dining room fronted by another bow window, and a smoking room. The bow windows continued up the facade, and the circular drawing room was surmounted by a circular bedroom. There was a semicircular dip in the centre of the facade, probably in order to let light into the glass dome.


Abbey


Origins

The
Anglican Benedictine There are a number of Benedictine Anglican religious orders, some of them using the name Order of St. Benedict (OSB). Just like their Roman Catholic counterparts, each abbey/priory/convent is independent of each other. The vows are not made to ...
community of
Caldey Abbey Caldey Abbey is an abbey of the Trappists situated on Caldey Island off the coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales, south of Tenby. Caldey Island thrived as a centre of Cistercian activity in the Middle Ages. The current abbey is modern; it was built in ...
, Pembrokeshire, converted to
Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
in 1913, with the exception of a small Anglican remnant, which moved into Abbey House at
Pershore Abbey Pershore Abbey, at Pershore in Worcestershire, was a Benedictine abbey with Anglo-Saxon origins and is now an Church of England, Anglican parish church, the Church of the Holy Cross. History Foundation The foundation of the minster at Pershore ...
, Worcestershire.Beattie (1997), p. 105. The new community was formally established in May 1914, though it had only one professed
monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...
and two
oblate In Christianity (specifically the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist traditions), an oblate is a person associated with a Benedictine monastery or convent who is specifically dedicated to God and service. Oblates are i ...
s. In 1915 the monk, Anselm Mardon, converted to Rome and went back to Caldey. Denys Prideaux, one of the oblates, was appointed warden, and in 1922 became the first
abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...
. The community soon found itself in need of more space. The Dolgoroukis' agent, Ewart, was a friend of the community, and alerted it to Nashdom's availability. The community bought Nashdom in May 1924 for £8,000, and moved there in September 1926.


Life

Nashdom Abbey was a centre of
Anglican Papalism Anglican Papalism, also referred to as Anglo-Papalism, is a subset of Anglo-Catholicism with adherents manifesting a particularly high degree of influence from, and even identification with, the Roman Catholic Church. This position has historica ...
, and used the
Roman Rite The Roman Rite () is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs Rite (Christianity) ...
. Its leading exponent in this was the
liturgical Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...
scholar
Gregory Dix George Eglinton Alston Dix (4 October 1901 – 12 May 1952), known as Gregory Dix, was a British monk and priest of Nashdom Abbey, an Anglican Benedictine community. He was a noted liturgical scholar whose work had particular influence on th ...
. He joined the community in 1926, just before the move from Pershore, and in 1948 became
prior The term prior may refer to: * Prior (ecclesiastical), the head of a priory (monastery) * Prior convictions, the life history and previous convictions of a suspect or defendant in a criminal case * Prior probability, in Bayesian statistics * Prio ...
. He died in 1952 and was buried in the abbey cemetery. The composer and
musicologist Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, f ...
Anselm Hughes was Nashdom's director of music, 1922–45, and prior, 1936–45. He died at Nashdom in 1974. Another member of the community, Bernard Clements, became a broadcaster and the vicar of
All Saints, Margaret Street All Saints is an Anglo-Catholicism, Anglo-Catholic church on Margaret Street, London, Margaret Street in Westminster, Greater London, England. Founded in the late 18th century as Margaret Street Chapel, the church became one aligned with the Ox ...
, London.


Daughter priory

In 1935, Nashdom started the training of a group of American
Episcopalians Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Prot ...
led by Paul Severance. In 1939, they founded St Gregory's House, later known as St Gregory's Priory, in Valparaiso, Indiana. In 1946 the priory moved to Three Rivers, Michigan. It remained a dependency of Nashdom until 1969, when it became St Gregory's Abbey.


Relocation

In 1987, the shrinking community left Nashdom for Elmore Abbey, near Newbury, Berkshire, where they built an abbey church, completed in 1995.
Justin Welby Justin Portal Welby (born 6 January 1956) is an Anglican bishop who served as the 105th archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England from 2013 to 2025. After an 11-year career in the oil industry, Welby trained for ordination at St John ...
, who later became the
Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...
, was a regular visitor to the abbey from the early 1990s, and became an Anglican Benedictine
oblate In Christianity (specifically the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist traditions), an oblate is a person associated with a Benedictine monastery or convent who is specifically dedicated to God and service. Oblates are i ...
in 2004. In September 2010 the remaining four monks moved again, into the Principal's House of
Sarum College Sarum College is a centre of theological learning in Salisbury, England. The college was established in 1995 and sits within the cathedral close on the north side of Salisbury Cathedral. The Sarum College education programme ranges from shor ...
, in the
close Close may refer to: Music * ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988 * ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017 * ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969 * "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014 * "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016 * "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
of
Salisbury Cathedral Salisbury Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Church of England, Anglican cathedral in the city of Salisbury, England. The cathedral is regarded as one of the leading examples of Early English architecture, ...
, Wiltshire. In June 2011, they gained
planning permission Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to buil ...
to build an extension to the house, including an oratory.


Apartment complex

Nashdom and its outbuildings were converted into an apartment complex in 1997. The house was turned into 15 apartments. Although the interior was much changed, the wind dial on the landing was kept, together with a bust of Princess Dolgorouki. The complex includes a swimming pool, tennis court and gym.


Gardens

There are of grounds, forming a long, south-pointing triangle, with the house at the northern end. The southeast, garden front of the house overlooks the main lawn. A massive
retaining wall Retaining walls are relatively rigid walls used for supporting soil laterally so that it can be retained at different levels on the two sides. Retaining walls are structures designed to restrain soil to a slope that it would not naturally keep to ...
, high, topped by a
balustrade A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...
, runs along the southwest edge of this lawn, with a great stone stairway descending in two flights to the former west lawn, now a car park. From the top of the stairway, a straight path (originally stone terracing) runs southeast, along the top of the retaining wall, and another runs northeast along the house's garden front, leading to a circular, walled
rose garden A rose garden or rosarium is a garden or park, often open to the public, used to present and grow various types of garden roses, and sometimes rose species. Designs vary tremendously and roses may be displayed alongside other plants or grouped ...
. From the main lawn, a central path, originally an avenue lined with
chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Description ...
s, leads southwards into mixed woodland, underplanted with
rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; : ''rhododendra'') is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the Ericaceae, heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan ...
s. The small abbey cemetery is among the trees. A number of Lutyens-designed features are Grade II listed buildings, including the rose garden wall, a stable, a gatehouse, and an alcove at the northern end of the former chestnut avenue.


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * {{coord, 51, 33, 00, N, 0, 40, 29, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Arts and Crafts gardens Benedictine monasteries in England Country houses in Buckinghamshire Grade II listed parks and gardens in Buckinghamshire Grade II* listed houses in Buckinghamshire Monasteries in Buckinghamshire Neoclassical architecture in England South Bucks District Works of Edwin Lutyens in England Anglican monasteries in the United Kingdom