As we enter the third millenium, the Community at Fernham looks back over fourteen centuries to its earliest days. A community of nuns was founded at St. Pierre-les-Dames, Rheims, in the year 598 and they adopted the Rule of St. Benedict in 630. A group of nuns left this community in 1133 to found the Royal Abbey of Montmartre - an Abbey which was to leave its mark upon the history of France and which was later to be associated with several saints of the church.

Five nuns from Montmartre made a foundation in 1630 at Montargis near Orleans; this new community grew in numbers and soon gained the status of an independent Priory. After a peaceable century and a half, the troubles of the French Revolution touched the Priory. Interrogations, threats, forced entry into the enclosure - very real physical danger.

Every effort was made to force the community to disband of their own accord and when this was met by the courageous defiance of the young Prioress, supported without exception by all her nuns, every one of whom declared her fixed resolve to remain faithful to her vows, the danger increased and it became apparent that flight from their native country was their only recourse. They hoped to find refuge in the Low Countries where they could resume their conventual life and were offered accommodation with the English Benedictine nuns in Brussels but the regulations of the Revolutionary government meant that this must be accomplished by way of a journey to England first.

The nuns encountered great hardships in their flight and, after enduring a stormy crossing of the English Channel, they landed at Shoreham, near Brighton, on October 17th 1792. Mrs Fitzherbert, godmother of one of the nuns, heard of their arrival and brought the Prince Regent, later King George IV, who was holding court in Brighton, to visit the distressed community. At her request, he showed the nuns great kindness and begged them to stay in the safety of his country. Before they left for London, the nuns sang the psalm verse "Domine salvum fac regem" for the Prince and the Prioress promised that they would continue to sing it daily in thanksgiving for the help they had received from him. This custom has continued unbroken until the present day.

St Mary's Priory has never aspired to the status of an abbey, nor would ever wish to do so. This is because in the days at Montargis, it was the custom of the King of France to establish his favourites as Abbesses and thus not only to accrue to himself all the revenues of the monasteries but also to bring great spiritual harm to the communities thus afflicted. To prevent this happening at Montargis, the far sighted community elected Our Lady as Abbess in perpetuity. And so, although we are not an abbey, we have an abbess. A statue of Our Lady Abbess stands in the nuns' choir and each year in a simple ceremony she is re-elected as our true superior so that the Mother of God is our mother in a very special sense.