Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade II listed building. Main construction periods 1905 to 1915

Summary from record TR 36 NW 1197:

Convent des Oiseaux, at Tower House, was used as a Military Convalescent Hospital during World War 1.

Monument Types

• SITE (Modern - 1905 AD to 1915 AD)
• HOSPITAL (Modern - 1914 AD to 1918 AD (at some time))

Full description

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The following text is from the original listed building designation:
The following building shall be added to the list:-
TR 36 NW MARGATE CANTERBURY ROAD Westgate-on-Sea
9/10003 St Augustine's College and the Abbey School
- II
Convent, church, school and presbytery. Built between 1905 and 1915 by the architect F A Walters for the community of the Canonesses of St Augustine who had been expelled from France under the anti-clerical laws in 1904. Only the chapel and range attached to the west belong to the best-quality phase of Walter's work which here extended over a long period. Chapel by F A Walters 1910 in Early Decorated style. Walls faced with roughcast with stone window surrounds, brick dressings and slate roof. Cruciform in plan, comprising a nuns' choir in the nave, transepts to serve as the public part of the chapel, Sanctuary at crossing of nave, transepts and to the east beyond the Sanctuary a Lady Chapel with an apsidal end. The nuns' choir contained 120 stalls. Ritual east front facing the road is symmetrical with central tall 5-bay apse. Windows are double pointed lancets with trefoils above in stone surrounds. Central blocked window with stone statue in niche. Hipped aisle either side of apse with tall arched opening with lancet and to west side of transepts 2 arched windows with 2 lancets and trefoil above. Arched doorcases. 2 hipped side chapels with double Caernarvon-arched windows each side of apse. Nave has arched windows with triple lancets and trefoil above side windows. South transept is gabled and of brick with cross-shaped saddlestone. Immense roughcast arch incorporating 2 tall lancets and oval window above. North transept has 3 small lancets and attached 1-storey roughcast gabled structure with one 3-light window. West front has tall brick turret with stone spirelet surmounted by iron cross. Interior of church has nave with ribbed wooden barrel-vaulted ceiling supported on elongated stone corbels, row of nuns' stalls with trefoliated heads on south and north walls, octagonal carved pulpit at north east end and tiled pavement. Chancel has elaborate stone reredos with blank arcading at base, pierced screen above the whole surmounted by statue of the Virgin Mary in architectural surround. Attached to the west are the Abbey School Buildings and Presbytery of 1905-1907 extended to south in less distinguished but related style between 1911 and 1915. Asymmetrical building in roughcast with brick dressings, slate roof and roughcast chimney stacks. To the extreme left is a 1-storey link block with slate roof and 3 dormers. 5 arched windows separated by brick pilasters with stone coping. Attached to the right is a 4-storey gable with 3 full height lancets with side buttresses. The side lancets have elaborate blank niches. The central one has on 3rd floor a 4-light casement. The 1st and 2nd floors have arched surrounds with mullioned and transomed windows and trefoil decoration. Arched doorcase with carved stone tympanum with statue. To the right is a 2-storey wing with 2 tiers of attics with 2 gabled 3-light dormers at the top and 2 3-light flat roofed dormers below. 1st floor has 5 mullioned and transomed windows to 1st floor set in arches and ground floor has arched windows with 2 lancets and circular window above. Gable to end with 4-light window and tall tower with hipped roof and slit windows. Projecting forward at the end is the Presbytery, a 2-storey building of roughcast with slate roof and roughcast chimneys. Front has 2 gable ends. 1st floor has 2 3-light casements, ground floor has 4 mullioned and transomed casements. Later and less significant ranges to rear of 1908-15. The architect's youngest daughter joined the Community in 1907. In 1962 she became Mother Mary Joseph, the Reverend Mother Vicar of the Canonesses of St Augustine in England.
Listing NGR: TR3224569672 (1)

Description from record TR 36 NW 1197:
Convent des Oiseaux, at Tower House, now St Augustine's, was used as a 30 bed Military Convalescent Hospital, run privately by the nuns at some time during World War 1. The building is still in use.(2)

<1> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<2> Hazel Basford, 2004, Kent VAD - the work of voluntary aid detachments in Kent during the first World War (Unpublished document). SKE31644.

<3> Dr Masayuki Otani, 2016, Heritage, design and access statement, Conversion of the Tower House into 13 self-contained units (Unpublished document). SKE52590.

Sources and further reading