Wedding Photographer Stanbrook Abbey — Pugin Gothic Benedictine Cloister, the Malvern Hills and the Severn Plain View
Stanbrook Abbey near Malvern is one of England’s most atmospherically powerful and most architecturally distinguished Victorian Gothic monastic venues for weddings — a Gothic Revival Benedictine community building of 1871 designed by Edward Welby Pugin (son of the great Augustus Welby Pugin) in the High Gothic manner, whose cloister, the abbey church, the chapter house and the gatehouse together constitute a complete Victorian Benedictine monastic complex of exceptional quality set on the south slope of the Malvern Hills above the Severn plain. The community of Benedictine nuns left Stanbrook in 2009, opening the complex for luxury hotel conversion while retaining the entire monastic architecture intact. For Stanbrook Abbey wedding photography, the cloister’s Gothic arcades, the church’s Pugin interior and the Malvern Hills views above the abbey provide a portrait setting of Victorian Gothic monastic character of considerable drama.
The Pugin Cloister, the Abbey Church and the Gothic Gatehouse
Stanbrook Abbey’s cloister — Edward Welby Pugin’s Gothic Revival cloister arcade of 1871, with pointed arches of Hollington sandstone, the carved foliage capitals and the enclosed cloister garth open to the sky — provides a portrait setting of Victorian Pugin Gothic architectural character available in a completely intact monastic cloister of this date. The abbey church — restored to its Pugin Gothic interior with the reredos, the carved choir stalls and the stained glass of the Victorian period largely surviving — provides a ceremony and portrait setting of Victorian Benedictine monastic church interior of considerable completeness. The gatehouse lodge at the abbey’s entrance — the Victorian Gothic gatehouse with the porter’s lodgings and the entry arch of sandstone — provides an exterior arrival portrait setting of monastic gateway character.
The Malvern Hills Above, the Severn Plain View and Great Malvern
Stanbrook Abbey’s hillside position on the south slope of the Malvern Hills — below the Worcestershire Beacon’s 425-metre summit, with the abbey’s terraced gardens providing a south-east-facing view across the Severn plain — provides a landscape backdrop of considerable Malvern Hills drama: the ridge’s pre-Cambrian rock visible above the Gothic roofline and the broad Severn plain extending east toward the Cotswolds provide a portrait scale contrast between the intimate medieval Gothic cloister and the vast English plain visible beyond. Great Malvern Priory — the Norman and Perpendicular church in the Victorian spa town visible three miles north along the ridge — provides a second portrait setting of medieval ecclesiastical character within easy drive. The Worcestershire Beacon’s summit ridge walk provides an elevated panoramic portrait setting above the abbey’s roofscape.