QUARR Abbey House was one of a series of fine houses built along the north coast of the Isle of Wight, as ‘cottages’ in which the English aristocracy could spend the summer months. This house had been built of stone which may have been recycled from the old abbey and stood among venerable oak trees with views over the Solent as far away as Chichcester. It had been the residence of the Cochrane family, one member of which, Admiral Thomas Cochrane (1779-1872) 10th Earl of Dundonald, secured fame by his part in the liberation of Chile, Peru and Brazil from Spanish dominion. It was Admiral Sir Thomas John Cochrane, k.c.b. (1779-1860) who had lived at Quarr Abbey House. Son of Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, he was Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth from 1852-55 and Admiral of the Fleet in 1865. His daughter, Minna (d. 1943), was lady-in-waiting to Princess Beatrice. It was at Quarr Abbey House that the Princess had spent her honeymoon after her marriage, 23 July 1885, to Henry of Battenburg. Queen Victoria knew Minna as Minnie and in her diary, only ten days before her death, the Queen recorded that on 12 January, 1901, Minnie Cochrane and Princess Beatrice had played duets to her. Osborne was only five miles (8kms) away and the Queen was a frequent visitor to Quarr Abbey House,

and in Cowes Week the Prince of Wales and the Kaiser are remembered to have been seen on a balcony looking at the sailing. Like so many families associated with the long years of Queen Victoria at Osborne, the Cochrane family ceased to visit the house after her death and it was in the charge of a caretaker when the monks took over. It was Lieutenant Thomas Belhaven Henry Cochrane (d. 1925), son of the Lord High Admiral and brother of Minnie, who sold the property to the monks. The purchase date was 24 May, 1907; Lieutenant Cochrane was then deputy Governor of the Isle of Wight.

Quarr Abbey House was much smaller than Appuldurcombe, and even with the staff lodgings around the stables it could only house about twenty. The plan was therefore to build the essentials of a monastery – refectory and cells for the monks – while using the house as it stood and postponing the construction of the church. This was in June,1907; the lease of Appuldurcombe was to expire in June, 1908. Fortunately the Solesmes community included an architect, Dom Paul Bellot, trained at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and son of an architect, but he was then busy in Holland, building a monastery for the exiled monks of Wisques, near Calais, who belonged to the same Solesmes family. He was called back to the Isle of Wight to prepare plans for buildings to house his own community.