Award for nuns’ eco-convent
A monastery for an enclosed order of Benedictine Nuns in Yorkshire has been named as one of Britain’s best new buildings in a national architecture competition.

Judges of the 2016 Royal Institute of British Architects National Awards said the designers of Stanbrook Abbey – home to 22 nuns who make up the Conventus of Our Lady of Consolation – had produced an “extraordinary piece of architecture”. The nuns moved to the new Stanbrook site in Wass in 2009 from the original Worcestershire Stanbrook Abbey, which was built with a Pugin church in 1871.

The eco-friendly building is made out of natural materials, has a wood chip boiler and solar panels. The nuns kept designers Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios firmly in check, according to the  judges, who added: “The sisters appear to have driven a hard bargain and they were rigorous in seeing their brief has been interpreted and delivered with care and affection.”