I came across this article concerning the Twyford Abbey community at one time. I worked alongside Brother Stan who was Brother Superior and mentioned in the article.
I found this article on the internet and thought it might be of interest, though some of what it says is not true or dubious. Brother Stan, for example, seems to be the victim of someone’s wild imagination.
“As a child things always seem bigger and more magical and linger in the imagination into adulthood. The smells, sights, and sounds stay vividly in your mind down the years.
There's such a place in Ealing, which seemed to generations of children like a magical countryside haven where sunny hours could be spent playing in the fields around a beautiful medieval manor house.
Twyford Abbey had been a manor house since medieval times, but in 1806, Thomas Willan, a stagecoach operator, had it rebuilt in the style of a medieval mansion so suit his imagination. He built grand battlements and towers that look like something out of a Disney movie.
Years later in 1902, it was bought by a Catholic order of monks called the Alexian brothers who converted it into a nursing home to look after
Inside there was a stunningly beautiful chapel, which at Christmas would be full of candles and incense where monks clad in robes would deliver mass.
Twyford Abbey is now a derelict ruin, waiting for redevelopment, but to generations of West London children, it was a glimpse of a magical world.
We spoke to two former altar boys who worked there:
"We came across them [the monks] through a friend of our father who went to mass there," said John.
"You had to have received your first Holy Communion to work as an altar boy there.
"You attended to the priest during the mass and there were high points in the year.
"Easter was a busy one because you had to do Good Friday, Easter Saturday and Sunday.
"We used to go round and deliver communion
"I remember visiting patients with a brother called Canon Lancelot Long."
Rob added: "You had to wear your cassock and surplice - like white monks habits with a belt."
"You'd go through a big thick door into the chapel and kneel with the priest at the same time.
John continued: "You would read the psalms and bidding prayer and officiate over the washing of the hands and you'd hold a little plate under the communicant's chin so the host wouldn't fall down."
"It was really solemn. You felt involved. I remember getting really nervous over ringing the bell at certain times during the mass.
"You were proud because your parents loved seeing you do it and especially at Easter time when you were doing a lot more like on Good Friday with the veneration of the cross when you would kiss the cross.
'There was a big cedar tree on the grounds and a grotto people will remember'
Robert said: "The chapel was highly decorated with alabaster and the ceiling was painted with images and there was a stained glass window with Christ and scenes from the Bible. One of the paintings was the Road to Damascus and the Good Samaritan."
John said: "There was an old farm around the back with a piggery and I used to practise my golf up there. It was a huge place. There was a big cedar tree on the grounds and there was a grotto and a cemetery where all the brothers were buried.
"I remember in the main entrance there was a porter's lodge and reception area and the brothers used to staff it.
"I remember talking to Brother Stan one day and behind us was a beautiful sweeping staircase with a red carpet and portraits all the way up and this figure came down the stairs this naked guy and I was looking at the fellow and Stan turned around and was appalled, shouting: 'Henry get back to bed'.
"He was pushing him back up the stairs and all the nurses were running down to find him. Years later I discovered it was Henry Williamson, the author of the book Tarka the Otter .
"He was the man who Lawrence of Arabia was replying to in a letter when he was killed on his motorcycle."
'I remember at Christmas it was so magical'
"I remember once seeing the beautiful library when I was studying for something. There were vast parts of it that we never saw. Their rooms were really spartan. They wouldn't have had anything. They were remarkable men really," adds John.
"I remember at Christmas it was so magical. They'd bring us tea and mince pies in this big drawing-room.
"The grandeur of the building made it so magical and you'd go home with this lovely Christmassy feeling. It felt like you were in the middle of the countryside and you'd come out and see all the stars. It was the same at Easter when they used to have a bonfire outside and you'd come out and light a candle into the darkness because Jesus was in the tomb. The chapel was so beautiful with all the candles flickering.
"There was a very intelligent priest there who had been married and had a family and his wife died but he became a priest. But he liked the booze. When he was doing services another brother would have to stand in for him and turn the pages to makes sure he could do the mass.
"Brother Stan used to drink the wine because he couldn't give it to him because he was an alcoholic," laughs Robert.
"I remember one time a Jaguar or Rolls pulled up and this very posh woman came in looking a bit like the Queen. I wished her a good evening. It turned out she was the heiress to the Vanguard business (now a major self-storage company).
"Much later my father used to help out there and do odd jobs and I remember going there with dad. Every morning and afternoon tramps would come from all over the place and they used to serve them soup and food. Their calling was nursing and serving the poor.
"We used to have sprint races in the grounds, and one day after we'd been doing that we got home and found out the Pope(John Paul II) had been shot. I will never forget that," says John.
"They used to have cattle grazing on the grounds that were owned by the Guinness brewery next door. They used to graze all the grass but a lorry came up and people stole them all one day.
"The brothers were largely self-sufficient they would have brewed their own beer and had their own honey. That probably all changed in the inter-war period a lot though. It would have been a little village once.Parts of the abandoned building are now derelict.
"You'd go in the nursing home bit and there was always the overwhelming smell of piss and cabbage and faeces. You'd go round the wards and it would stink.
"We had a workshop there and my dad turned it into our gym and set up a punchbag there full of sand and you'd nearly break your hand when you punched it.
"The brothers loved our dad. he'd do anything for them. People often thought the Abbey was loaded but they weren't and dad was acutely aware of that. He was always out to save them money and help them economise. I remember a glazier trying to charge them for fixing a window and dad was really offended. He really got the hump.
"There was a priest called Father Rochla who was from Czechoslovakia and was wanted by the Soviets. On a Sunday during the sermon, he'd go off on a rant about Stalin and Khrushchev and in the end, the brothers had to suppress him. They wouldn't let him do homilies anymore.
"He'd be saying anti-Soviet stuff, going on and on. But there was a Polish lady there who lapped it up.There are plans to redevelop the site and some of it still looks stunning inside (Wentworth Anderson)
"He would talk about how the Catholic church was still being persecuted. he used to be a regular visitor to our house and he'd come in and see us watching Top of The Pops and there'd be Pan's People dancing around scantily clad and he'd tell us to turn it off.
"The film Grease was on once and he made me turn it off.
"Every year he used to walk across the Dolomites to get into Czechoslovakia to go and see his family. He would camp in his tent up in the frozen wastes and said it was so cold he had to hack his bread with an ice pick.
"He was a spartan character and was writing a history of the Cezch nation all in spidery pencil writing.
"He'd walk along the Grand Union Canal in Greenford to train up for his walk. One time he was walking along the canal and he picked out a baby starling and said: 'look after this as a pet', I think because they had starlings in Czechoslovakia," says Rob.
There is graffiti on the outside of the abbey(Image: Derelict London)
"Then there was brother Stan whose brother was a bishop in Nigeria and who was friends with Pope John Paul II. He had his picture taken with him because he looked just like him. That picture took pride of place in our house.
"I used to pick him up from the airport when he came over. I used to be waiting with a sign saying 'Bishop' and I used to greet him as 'My Lord'. He was Irish. he was one of us but moved in high circles and was in good relations with the Pope.
"But they were all getting older the brothers, there weren't that many coming in. They had to employ professional nurses.
"It all came to an end when brother Stan died. It was the same year my dad died," remembers John sadly.
"It was at the height of the Aids epidemic and the brothers decided to sell the abbey and move up to Manchester where they had another centre.
"The idea was that would be the centre of operations to fight the Aids epidemic.
"They stripped all the alabaster out and moved it to Manchester. They didn't have the funds to fix the chapel. You could see all the plaster had blown because of the damp and they didn't have the funds to fix it.
"It was the end of an era really, a moment in time. It felt like it was the end of things in a lot of ways then."
But hopefully, there will be a future. The Abbey was in fact bought up in 2016 by a London-based partnership called Twyford Abbey LLP for more than £10 million.
There were plans to turn it into a secondary school though MyLondon understands this now may be in doubt.
What is certain is that it is falling into disrepair, and if nothing is done, an incredible piece of local heritage will be lost forever. (Here ends the published article).
