Skip to main content

Gang Attack St Michael's Abbey in Farnborough

Surprisingy Farnborough in Hampshire has it's own Abbey, St Michael's Abbey. Well, not quite it's own but one built by The Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III of France.

Unfortunately the Abbey grounds and the monastic community have recently been attacked, as reported in the Farnborough News and Mail.

I visited the Abbey last Saturday and asked my guide Brother Thomas how they were coping. His reply was "it's an occupational hazard nowadays."

Gang attack historic abbey in Farnborough
By Jack Sommers
June 25, 2010


MONKS are living in fear after a gang of teenagers stormed their historic abbey, causing £2,000 worth of damage.

A group of between 15 and 20 youths began shouting abuse at the monks at St Michael’s Abbey via the gate-phone at its Farnborough Road entrance in the late hours of Saturday June 12, the day of England’s match against the USA in the World Cup.

Father Dom Cuthbert Brogan, abbot of the Grade 1 listed abbey, said he had been frustrated when he was told by police that it would not be possible to immediately despatch officers to the scene when he reported the disturbance.

The police said that the evening had been busy, with disturbances caused by a large number of people who had gone out after the World Cup match.

Fr Cuthbert said: “While I understand the limited resources of the police force and the necessity of prioritising emergency calls, I cannot help but be disappointed to be informed, while 20 youths are breaking into our property and threatening us, that the most we can hope for is a visit within a few days for an incident report.

Pray for the safety of the Abbey and the community there.

Here's a pic I took whilst there. Enjoy, and visit if you can!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Spammers, trolls and blatantly offensive posts will be summarily deleted. My blog, my rules. Otherwise comment away!

Popular posts from this blog

The Upper Rooms

We often think of the 'upper room' as being the place where Jesus and the Disciples held the Last Supper but the Bible has many more 'upper rooms'.
Post a Comment
Read more

Sound familiar?

Watching the BBC interview of Adele by Graham Norton tonight and Adele sang one of the new tracks off her forthcoming album. The track was called A Million Years Ago. Listening to it reminded me of a different song by someone else. You know where you almost recognise a tune but get lost with the words, yet it's the words which are the key! Eventually it came to me, El Shaddai by Michael Card, famously sung by Amy Grant. It's a song that I occasionally play during worship. Have a listen. What do you think?
Post a Comment
Read more

The Archbishop and Wonga

Image via CrunchBase Have to say I was initially chuffed to see the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby laying down a challenge to Wonga and others of their ilk. The AoC communicated that he wanted to see the payday loan industry driven out of business by promoting the use of credit unions. The payday loan industry is involved in outright usury which is condemned by many faiths such as Islam and Christianity and others. Usury we can look upon as the lending of money at exorbitant rates of interest. But then I thought what was the AoC actually saying? He wanted to replace excessive usury with not so excessive usury. Is that what we should be aiming for? Plus the architects of our current austerity are backing the AoC! I would love to see all of the credit industry driven out of business but it will only be done by paying workers a decent wage, sharing in the profit of their labour and making capitalism history. At the end of the day this sort of initiative is just a...
3 comments
Read more