Beeches Green Friendship Circle: A visit to Prinknash Abbey and a slide show by Angela Panrucker on The Order of the Garter

OUR June and July meetings were both very interesting, the June meeting being a visit to Prinknash Abbey, where we all enjoyed a delightful afternoon tea.

We were then given a very interesting talk by Father Steven concerning the origin and history of the monastery.

The History of the Abbey goes back a 1,000 years and is mentioned in the Doomsday Book.

Gloucester Abbey now Gloucester Cathedral was basically built by the monks of Prinknash.

The monks are Benedictine and the work of the Abbey is to pray for the world, and the heart of the monastic community is the Abbey chapel where the monks pray at regular intervals throughout the day.

The spirituality of life and the need to listen to our inner souls is very important to them.

At one time Prinknash Abbey produced pottery.

This started when they found a seam of clay during some building work.

The pottery was often finished with a metallic glaze.

Eventually in 1997 the pottery side of the monastery was sold to the Welsh Porcelain Company.

The Abbey Chapel is open to visitors and we were able to visit the shop and have a walk around the grounds before going home.

The July meeting was a talk and slide show by Angela Panrucker and the subject was The Order of the Garter an event which takes place every year at Windsor Castle.

Angela attends most years and was happy to discuss her love of this event, and show us some of the many slides that she has taken.

In medieval times, King Edward III was so inspired by tales of King Arthur and the chivalry of the Knights of the Round Table that he set up his own group of honourable knights, called the Order of the Garter.

They have their own motto ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ (Shame on him who thinks this evil).

Nearly 700 years later this Order is the oldest and most senior Order of Chivalry in Britain.

The Knights, now both male and female, used to be limited to aristocracy, but today they are chosen from a variety of backgrounds, in recognition for their public service.

There are also Knights known as Knights Extraordinaire amongst these are Prince Edward, Prince Andrew and Prince William.

Each year The Queen, Royal Members of the Order of the Garter and the Garter Knights, never more or less than 25 in number, accompanied by music, popular as well as military, parade through the castle grounds to the chapel.

Every Garter Knight is required to display a banner of his arms in the Chapel, together with a helmet, crest and sword and an enamelled stallplate.

The Chapel service is not open to the general public but admission to the castle grounds to watch the parade is possible provided an admission ticket has been obtained.

These need to be ordered in advance from The Superintendent of Windsor Castle.

The service is relayed to the public by loud speakers.

We have a break in August and our next meeting will Tuesday, September 20, and will be a talk by Linda Diggory on The Willow Trust.