A hiding place for Catholic nuns in troubled times
In 2015, television presenter Alex Polizzi reopened the Bar Convent after it had undergone a £2 million restoration. It’s fair to say this was the most high-profile moment in this institution’s very hidden history. Many York residents are oblivious to the convent’s existence, and of those who do know about it few have set foot inside. That’s both forgivable and disappointing. Forgivable as the Bar Convent deliberately kept a low profile for much of its 300-year life; disappointing because the tales it can tell are enlightening.
Founded in the late 17th century by followers of Mary Ward, a heroine of the Catholic resistance, the convent and school operated in times of fierce anti-Catholic sentiment. The women who lived and worked here wore slate-coloured gowns and called themselves the Ladies of the Bar. To be revealed as a sister of the Bar Convent meant punishment – even death. Things hadn’t improved by the mid-18th century. When the house was rebuilt in the 1760s, the architect hid the dome of the chapel behind a pitched slate roof so no one knew it was there.
Info
Address 17 Blossom Street, York YO24 1AQ, +44 (0)1904 643238, www.bar-convent.org.uk, reception@bar-convent.org.uk | Public Transport 5-minute walk from the railway station. Nunnery Lane car park is opposite the convent. Closest bus stops: Nunnery Lane and Blossom Street | Hours Cafe and garden: Mon–Sat 8am–4pm; Exhibition, chapel, and gift shop: Mon–Sat 10am–4pm| Tip Inside Micklegate Bar, across the road from the convent, is the Henry VII Experience, which explores the life of the king, and of York in medieval times.
An interactive exhibition has been added as part of the recent restoration. It re-creates the secrecy and fear of those times – you can even squeeze into a priest hole and listen as the authorities search for your hiding place.
Although still home to members of the Congregation of Jesus today, the convent is keen to welcome more visitors. And it is worth going for the hidden chapel alone, one of York’s unsung jewels. Thankfully, the chapel was not badly damaged in another of the convent’s darkest hours, when it took a direct hit from a Luftwaffe bomb during the Second World War.
Today the Bar Convent is a cafe, guest house, conference venue, pastoral centre, museum, and place of worship. There is nothing else quite like it, and it deserves to be much better known.
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