page_title: St Joseph's Convent, Taunton
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: St Joseph's Convent, Taunton / History
caption_attribution_description: English: St George's Rectory
context_page_description: St Joseph's Convent is a complex of 18th- and 19th-century buildings in Taunton, Somerset, which were primarily used as a Roman Catholic convent, first by the Franciscans, and then Sisters of St. Joseph of Annecy. The buildings were sold out of the Catholic church in 1976, and were redeveloped as residential flats in 2005. The main building is designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building, while the boundary walls on the west side are Grade II listed.
  The main building was begun in 1772, as a free hospital for the poor, but funding ran out two years later, and it was completed as a private residence. In the early 19th century, it was bought by a group of Franciscan nuns, who moved from an unsatisfactory site in Winchester. The nuns carried out a number of additions and extensions to the building to make it more suitable for their needs. They moved out of Taunton in 1950 and sold the convent to the Sisters of St. Joseph, who continued to run a school on the site for the next twenty-six years.
context_section_description: Originally, the site was intended to be a hospital; on the first stone, which was laid in September 1772, the engraving describes the building as "a general hospital, for the relief of the sick poor." That foundation stone was laid by Frederick North, Lord North, the British Prime Minister at the time. In 1774, the building work stopped when funds ran out, and shortly after it was sold to recover the debts incurred from building it. The building was eventually completed as a personal residence, and came into the hands of James Coles. Upon his death, the house, known as Taunton Lodge, was put up for sale. This was brought to the attention of a group of Franciscan nuns. The nuns had left Bruges in Belgium, and arrived in England in 1794 to avoid persecution during the French Revolution. They initially settled in Winchester, but the buildings they utilised there were not suitable for their permanent use, and in October 1806, they were ordered to look for somewhere else to establish themselves.
  Mr Knight of Cannington alerted the nuns to the sale of Taunton Lodge, and they raised the £3,150 required to purchase it. They completed the purchase in early May 1807, after some minor quibbles with the Coles family. When the abbess visited the Lodge prior to the purchase, she had identified that it would require £1,000 worth of improvements in addition to the money already spent on its acquisition. The plans included extending the existing building to gain a staircase and some dormitories for the school girls, and the addition of a new wing that would include a chapel, infirmary, four cells, and rooms for the male chaplain and servants. The new building was begun in March 1808, and by June of that year, the entire community had moved from Winchester, despite the work being ongoing. The shell of the new body was completed by the autumn of 1808, but the work was delayed due to a lack of finances as £1,908 had already been spent on altering the old building. This cost did not include the erection of the new wing, thus the constructions costs were already far surpassing the original estimate.
  Within two years of being built, the roof on the new wing had to be replaced as it had started sinking; the joists "were made of bad wood & put in the wrong way". It was too close to winter in 1810 for the work to be completed that year, and it had to be left until the following spring. The wing was completed, with replacement roof, by January 1812, at a total cost of just over £2,230. A storm in 1818 damaged the roof in the original building, and on inspection it was found that the whole roof should be replaced; this was completed by September of the same year.
  The convent continued to be significantly expanded over the next twenty years, and in 1858 the Franciscans purchased a plot of land adjacent to the convent for the erection of a church, rectory and school. This was gifted to the local Bishop, and St George's Church was opened on the site two years later.
  In 1950, the Franciscans sold the convent buildings to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Annecy. The latter had been in Taunton since the 1920s, running St George's School, and upon purchasing the convent, set up St Joseph's Convent School, which catered for boys and girls up to the age of 11, and girls on to 18. That school continued to operate until 1976, when the property was bought by the nearby King's College, who used it as accommodation for their boarding students. In 2005, the building complex was converted to "high quality" residential flats.
caption: St George's Rectory on land donated by the convent in 1858
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