Weston Priory

“It’s like mainlining tranquility.” So affirmed John Nunnikhoven back in 1980, when I called him at The Colonial House bed and breakfast to book the entire facility for the music group of which I was a member. He was talking about all of Weston, I think, but I know I also expressed an especial interest in Weston Priory, familiar as I was with some aspects of the lives of the monks there through their numerous folksy recordings in my father’s cassette collection.

I am not current on the status of music at the priory these days. I can only imagine that the monk who composed their music and accompanied them on guitar back in the 80’s is no longer alive. (My apologies if he lives and I seem to hasten him to his demise through that assertion.) But at the time, it was well worth scheduling a visit to the priory to correspond with their public and musical observance of one of the canonical offices. They would sing—and dance.

I was keenly interested, too, in one of the monks’ ceramic works. My father had a catalogue with color plates of some of his pottery, and I found occasion to glorify God in the admiring of images of several of his sang-de-boeuf and celadon pieces. I can trace some of my current interest in pottery collecting to this early influence.

Perhaps I would have done well to research and get myself more up-to-date on the monks, prior to writing this entry, but I’m relishing the nostalgia nonetheless … and will leave the research for anyone who might find her/himself titillated by this nugget of history.