St Joseph's Convent, Taunton

St Joseph's Convent
North-west end, pictured in 2015.
Location in Somerset
Former names	Taunton Lodge, Franciscan Convent
General information
Architectural style	Gothic
Location	Taunton, Somerset
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°00′41″N 3°05′44″W / 51.0115°N 3.0956°W / 51.0115; -3.0956
Construction started	1772
Renovated	1807–12
Listed Building – Grade II*
Official name	St Joseph's Convent
Designated	4 July 1975
Reference no.	1276422
Listed Building – Grade II
Official name	Stone walls to grounds of St Joseph's Convent
Designated	4 July 1975
Reference no.	1276403

St Joseph's Convent is a complex of 18th- and 19th-century buildings in

The main building was begun in 1772, as a free hospital for the poor, but funding ran out two years later, and it was completed as a private residence. In the early 19th century, it was bought by a group of Franciscan nuns, who moved from an unsatisfactory site in Winchester. The nuns carried out a number of additions and extensions to the building to make it more suitable for their needs. They moved out of Taunton in 1950 and sold the convent to the Sisters of St. Joseph, who continued to run a school on the site for the next twenty-six years.

History

Originally, the site was intended to be a hospital; on the first stone, which was laid in September 1772, the engraving describes the building as "a general hospital, for the relief of the sick poor."

Mr Knight of Cannington alerted the nuns to the sale of Taunton Lodge, and they raised the £3,150 required to purchase it. They completed the purchase in early May 1807, after some minor quibbles with the Coles family. When the abbess visited the Lodge prior to the purchase, she had identified that it would require £1,000 worth of improvements in addition to the money already spent on its acquisition. The plans included extending the existing building to gain a staircase and some dormitories for the school girls, and the addition of a new wing that would include a chapel, infirmary, four cells, and rooms for the male chaplain and servants. The new building was begun in March 1808, and by June of that year, the entire community had moved from Winchester, despite the work being ongoing.^[2] The shell of the new body was completed by the autumn of 1808, but the work was delayed due to a lack of finances as £1,908 had already been spent on altering the old building. This cost did not include the erection of the new wing, thus the constructions costs were already far surpassing the original estimate.^[5]

Within two years of being built, the roof on the new wing had to be replaced as it had started sinking; the joists "were made of bad wood & put in the wrong way". It was too close to winter in 1810 for the work to be completed that year, and it had to be left until the following spring. The wing was completed, with replacement roof, by January 1812, at a total cost of just over £2,230.^[6] A storm in 1818 damaged the roof in the original building, and on inspection it was found that the whole roof should be replaced; this was completed by September of the same year.^[7]

The convent continued to be significantly expanded over the next twenty years,^[8] and in 1858 the Franciscans purchased a plot of land adjacent to the convent for the erection of a church, rectory and school.^[9] This was gifted to the local Bishop, and St George's Church was opened on the site two years later.^[10]

In 1950, the Franciscans sold the convent buildings to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Annecy. The latter had been in Taunton since the 1920s, running St George's School, and upon purchasing the convent, set up St Joseph's Convent School, which catered for boys and girls up to the age of 11, and girls on to 18. That school continued to operate until 1976, when the property was bought by the nearby King's College, who used it as accommodation for their boarding students. In 2005, the building complex was converted to "high quality" residential flats.^[9]

1809 miracle

In March 1809 a

The main building is a symmetrical three-storey house built of red brick, with a yellow brick central range which was added later. The building has a cornice and parapet, and a bowed end which projects to the east. On the south side, there is an additional attic storey. The house retains its original sash windows, and on the first floor some of the windows have wrought-iron balconettes. An addition to the building has been made in the south-west, including an arcade on the ground floor, and a bell tower. Further additions were made to the main building in the 19th century, including a Gothic chapel of red brick with ashlar dressings to the north. There are later buildings on either side of the chapel: to the west is a 19th-century building with a two-storey entrance porch, while a Gothic cloister, comprising two walks with scissor-trussed timber roofs, lies to the east. There is a further extension to the south, which is not part of the Grade II* listing.^[16][17]

A summerhouse was added to the grounds, probably alongside the 19th-century additions to the main building. It was constructed of red and white brick, and had a steep slate roof. The east side displayed a crucifix. The building was Grade II listed in July 1975, but has since been demolished.^[18] The stone walls around the site are Grade II listed where they are the original "high stone rubble wall with brick capping"; in other places they have been renovated in newer red brick.^[19]

References