Gloucester’s Greyfriars

Gloucester’s Greyfriars seems to have suffered two misfortunes. The first was going to the trouble of being wholly rebuilding it in 1519 only for it to be closed down and ruined in 1538. What a pity that they did not make do with the previous building, saving considerable expense and trouble. Wonderful thing, hindsight. The second is the ugly monstrosity of an office block, itself barely less ruined and wrecked, which peers out over the sixteenth century remains (above). If it is a pity that Greyfriars was rebuilt, it is a pity that that building was ever built at all.

In general, we tend to confuse monks and friars. For example, Friar Tuck in the Robin Hood tale is invariably called a monk. He was not, he was a friar; the clue is in the name. Monks lives in remote monasteries, barely venturing out, enjoying lives of meditation, silence, gardening and contemplation. Friars made a point of building their friaries in urban centres, deliberately going out each day to preach, say Mass, assist the regular clergy and tend to the poor.

I am sure that we all sometimes, even ardent Protestants, envy the monks with their solitude and their running away from the noisy, dirty towns. Yet few of us may copy them; if anything, we are called to be more like the friars, engaging with the busy routines of everyday life, negotiating the mud and squalor of existence in a fallen world, of which that horrible office block is a fitting picture.

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:4

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