#there's a connecting staircase right by the library that we were not allowed up on pain of death

So I read about a Catholic convent in the late 1600s in England that was operated in secret, but how did they do that?

omgomgomg i love the Bar Convent. basically, it was set from the start to be a girl's school. a wealthy (secretly Catholic) landowner gave money to 15 sisters and told them to make a school. the place was built and rebuilt to merge into the surrounding neighbourhood. for instance, having a dome built hidden under an outward slate roof.

so, to the outside, it was a small school for girls, taught by "widowed" teachers. but the building had a hidden chapel (for the underground Yorkshire secret Catholics) and ofc the "widows" were nuns. it also had eight exits and a priest hole in case it was raided. (btw. a priest hole is literally a hole in the ground, in a home or a church, where priests could hide from priest hunters/British authorities from the mid-1570s til the late 1700s)

you can read more about the Bar Convent here !!!

#My first week at All Saints they took us up to the chapel to see #there's a connecting staircase right by the library that we were not allowed up on pain of death #and they took as round the chapel told us about the history #and right at the end got out Margaret Clitherow's hand for us to have a look fully lined us up and we went up one by one it was the best #Our diocese also holds its LGBT ministry mass there which is a delight