On 17 September 2024 the Library of St. Anthony’s College, Oxford hosted a visit from Dr Petà Dunstan and a group of Anglican novices. Dr Dunstan, a historian of Anglican religious life and regular visitor to St Antony’s, spoke to the group about the community of nuns who lived in what is now the Old Main Building from its construction in 1866-8 until 1945. The Society of the Holy and Undivided Trinity was established by Marian Rebecca Hughes in 1841 who presided over the community there until her death in 1912.
Dr Dunstan’s group visited the Gulbenkian Room, formerly the convent’s dining room, and the main College Library built as the convent chapel in 1891-4. They particularly enjoyed the paintings in the Library apse by Charles Edgar Buckeridge (son of the architect of the main convent building) and Ethel King Martin. Library and Archives staff showed a number of photographs of the former chapel and talked about how the space had been used since the nuns’ departure in 1945. The group then continued on to Mother Marian’s grave in St Sepulchre’s cemetery.
