Founding a sisterhood
The Community of St Mary the Virgin was founded in Wantage in 1848 by William John Butler, who had become vicar of Wantage in 1846. It grew out of the Oxford Movement, which sought to restore older forms of worship and devotion in the Church of England, and it was among the first religious communities for women in the Church of England since the Reformation. Mother Harriet was its first superior. Butler stayed as the community’s warden until his death in 1894, even after he left Wantage to become a canon of Worcester and then Dean of Lincoln. (The Victoria County History gives the founding date as 1850, and some reference books follow it; the community itself uses 1848.)
The buildings
The sisters moved into their convent between the Challow and Denchworth roads in the late 1850s. George Edmund Street, who was also restoring the parish church, designed the first convent house of 1855–56 in his Gothic Revival style, and added the chapel of St Mary Magdalene in 1858–61. William Butterfield designed later ranges, and the convent was extended again in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
The large chapel was begun in 1887 to designs by J. L. Pearson, the architect of Truro Cathedral. It was lengthened in 1900 with an ante-chapel, Lady Chapel, galleries and vestry, and in 1923 Sir Ninian Comper reordered the east end. A stone statue of the Virgin at the west end was carved in 1922 by Sister Maribel, a sculptor who later led the community as Mother General from 1940 to 1953. The chapel is listed at Grade II*.
The community’s work
From the start the sisters combined a life of prayer with active work. In Wantage they ran schools, including St Mary’s School, founded in 1873, and trained teachers. For about a century the convent also took in young women for a two-year stay, a ministry later known as St Joseph’s Domestic School. Branch houses followed across England and in India and southern Africa. Another sister, Penelope Lawson, corresponded with C. S. Lewis for more than twenty years.
On 1 January 2013 eleven sisters, including the mother superior, left to join the Roman Catholic Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The Anglican community continues at Wantage, keeping a daily round of services in chapel and welcoming retreat guests and groups.
Visiting
The convent is a private religious house, not a visitor attraction. Guests, retreatants and groups are received by arrangement with the community. The buildings can be seen from Challow Road.
Nearby
The parish church, which Butler served and Street restored, is ten minutes’ walk away in the town centre.