A last minute phone shot for the theme of Architecture, Flash of Red February. It was bitterly cold and getting dark when I took this shot and sadly the gathering of rooks (or crows?) along the rooftops isn't visible but it added to the spooky feel when standing outside.
Background information copied from doverhistorian.com › 2013/09/14 › st-radegunds-abbey
"The Abbey of Saint Radegund is at the top of the Coombe Valley, at Poulton, on a minor road from Dover to Folkestone. Now a working farm, the Abbey gives its name, with a slightly different spelling, to a part of Dover – St Radigunds.
St Radegund, to whom the Abbey was dedicated, was a princess born in 518 AD. Her father, Berthaire, was the pagan King of Thuringia in Southern Germany but when she was about ten her country was invaded by the Franks. Radegund was taken prisoner by King Clothier (or Lothier in some accounts) and he decided that Radegund should be groomed for the role of a royal Christian wife. Radegund acquiesced and took her studies seriously.
When she grew up, not only was Radegund accomplished but also very beautiful and Clothier, a notorious womaniser, decided to make her his fifth wife. Radegund, by all accounts, accepted her position meekly but increasingly devoted herself to great charitable works. Notably, she founded a hospital for lepers and persons ‘afflicted with the most nauseous distempers’, nursing them herself. She was also very pious and it was reputed that during Lent, Radegund wore a shift of haircloth with iron chains and collars and even hot plates of iron under her robes. She also abstained from eating flesh, fish, eggs and fruit.
About six years after their marriage, Clothier had Radegund’s brother murdered and this was probably the last straw for the young queen. Albeit, instead of loudly protesting, she ‘quietly removed herself from Court’ and sought help of Bishop Medard of Noyon, who was later canonised. The Bishop conferred on her the veil, made her a deaconess and Radegund retired to a religious house at Poitiers, France.
Clothier, however, demanded Radegund’s return and was about to try force when Germain, the Bishop of Paris (again later canonised), persuaded Clothier to leave his wife alone. In 557 Radegund built the monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers for which, twelve years later, she obtained, from Emperor Justin I, a large fragment of the true cross-encased in rich reliquary. Radegund’s monastery, for both monks and nuns, became a centre of learning. Radegund died peacefully on 13 August 587 and was buried in the crypt at Poitiers..."
