The Carmelite Oxford Priory and retreat centre is situated in a beautiful Oxfordshire greenbelt location, surrounded by woodland and with an amazing view across the city of Oxford. Originally the home of the poet Robert Bridges, the Victorian country house was rebuilt after a fire in 1927 in a modernist style. It became a priory in the 1960s and the house extended upwards with a second storey and new buildings added: a ‘temporary’ flat-roofed timber annex with bedroom accommodation and a 1980’s two-storey pyramidal building with further guest bedrooms, kitchen, dining and meeting room facilities.

The disparate collection of buildings needed upgrading, replacing and a rethink to create a complex that respects the beauty of its natural surroundings and meets the specific needs of the friars and their retreatant guests.

The temporary building is life-expired and beyond economic reuse. Its demolition makes way for a new collection of two-storey buildings with cloistered walkway surrounding a quiet courtyard. The three retained buildings are upgraded to improve their thermal performance and to subtly and cost-effectively tie them in visually with the new buildings to create an appealing and coherent new arrangement.

Robert Bridges former library, now the friar’s chapel, is in the Arts & Crafts architectural style; this has informed the design proposals. The new buildings are brick built with some simple but elegant brickwork detailing and coursing beneath traditional clay tiles on a steeply pitched roof. The buildings are arranged around the courtyard to create axis and pleasing symmetry and for maximum enjoyment of the views and surrounding landscape.

The proposals provide 30 ensuite bedrooms for retreatants and guests to the priory, each one presented simply and frugally to suit the Carmelite tradition. The proposals also provide a new centralised library, meeting rooms, offices, refectory and kitchen to provide for the ongoing needs of the friars and their residential and day visitor guests.