Canons Regular of Prémontré - Our Lady of England Priory - Storrington - UK

APRIL 2010 - THE NEW REFECTORY EXTENSION IS NOW COMPLETE

Before	After

In the 1960’s due to the pressures of an increasing community, it was necessary to enlarge the refectory. Consequently an outside wall was demolished and a simple wood-framed, flat-roofed extension was added to the east side of the main house. This served its purpose for many years both for the resident community and for larger groups who needed dining space.

The flat roof meant that accumulated rain water eventually took its toll and the structure began to show serious signs of decay, to the extent that one window fell out and had to be boarded up.

We realised that the extension would have to be replaced and so we consulted various architects and discussed amongst ourselves our requirements. We need to provide facilities which allow not only for the resident community and any guests but also for bigger groups. We also wanted to create something that was much more in keeping with the original late Victorian structure. We decided to build a pitched-roofed, brick-built extension which would lead out onto a terrace. Because of the demands of engineering and building regulations this meant we would lose about a third of the old refectory. We have decided to meet this need by demolishing the wall between the refectory and the cloister and replacing this with sliding glass doors, thus allowing for occasional use of the cloister space in conjunction with the refectory when we need to cater for bigger groups. Such sliding doors will take away the old bottleneck access.

In addition to the new extension, we decided to balance this with a similar pitch-roofed and open-sided veranda or loggia outside the library. We hope that this will give a much more architecturally pleasing aspect to the east side of our building. It will of course provide for another outside meeting/sitting space for visiting groups.