St Stephen's Church, Skipton

Virtual Tour - the Lady Chapel

>> Introduction  >  Exterior  >  Nave & Gallery  >  Sanctuary  >  Side chapel  >  Convent  <<

This is St Monica's Convent building, founded by Monica Tempest in 1861. The current buildings date from the final extension in 1892. In 1993 the nuns moved into the Presbytery building and the priests moved into this building. For more on the history and use of this building, please click HERE. 

The parish lawn fronts this building and it is the site of many parish activities, from the toddlers club every week to the annual Garden Party. Photographs may be seen on the Events page.

There are three outdoor Marian shrines on the site, one in the old school car-park, one near the Presbytery and finally one facing the convent building. This is shown in the photograph below. It was installed in 1894, a gift of the Fattorini family and it is called a Lourdes Grotto.

In 1858, the Virgin Mary appeared to St Bernadette in a grotto by the small French Pyrenees village of Lourdes. The result of these apparitions was the discovery of a miraculous spring which has since given rise to many unexplained cures. In 1869 Pius IX approved the Lourdes apparition and people began to flock there. Lourdes is now a thriving pilgrimage site and people travel from all over the world to bathe in the spring, to care for the sick and to pray, as Our Lady desired.

The Lourdes Grotto recreates the scene of St Bernadette kneeling and saying the Rosary with the Virgin Mary who had declared to her in the local patois: "I am the Immaculate Conception".

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. Amen.