Qualla: The Nunnery, Douglas https://qualla.com/the-nunnery-douglas en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:16 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: The Nunnery, Douglas https://qualla.com/the-nunnery-douglas The Nunnery, Douglas: Introduction https://qualla.com/the-nunnery-douglas/ On the night of Sunday, 22 May 1313, Robert the Bruce slept here. The next morning he rode south to lay siege to Castle Rushen - the great Manx fortress that would fall to him three weeks later. The place that gave him shelter was a community of nuns living on a low rise of ground above the River Glass, outside Douglas. Seven centuries on, none of their priory remains above ground, but the estate still bears their old name, and the path the Bruce took on that long-ago Monday is still a road you can drive today.

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/u/the-nunnery-douglas-wp/gcsu-the-nunnery-douglas-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Nunnery, Douglas: The Priory and its King https://qualla.com/the-nunnery-douglas/ The Priory of Douglas was a small monastery of nuns, founded sometime under the reign of Rǫgnvaldr Guðrøðarson, King of the Isles, who ruled from 1187 to 1226. It was not a wealthy house. The Isle of Man itself was a contested prize in that century, passed between Norse and Scott...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/u/the-nunnery-douglas-wp/gcsu-the-nunnery-douglas-the-priory-and-its-king.mp3 0:06 2 full The Nunnery, Douglas: Dissolution and a Married Prioress https://qualla.com/the-nunnery-douglas/ The priory was suppressed in 1540, swept away with the rest of the religious houses by Henry VIII's reformation. Nothing of the monastic buildings remains today except St. Bridget's Chapel, which spent the centuries after the dissolution as a coach house. What happened next reads...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/u/the-nunnery-douglas-wp/gcsu-the-nunnery-douglas-dissolution-and-a-married-prioress.mp3 0:06 3 full The Nunnery, Douglas: Gothic Revival on a Manx Hill https://qualla.com/the-nunnery-douglas/ In 1823 John Taubman commissioned a new mansion in the Strawberry Hill Gothic Revival style - the same imaginative medievalism that Horace Walpole had pioneered at his own Strawberry Hill villa in Twickenham. The Nunnery's designers were John Pinch the elder and his son, John Pin...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/u/the-nunnery-douglas-wp/gcsu-the-nunnery-douglas-gothic-revival-on-a-manx-hill.mp3 0:06 4 full The Nunnery, Douglas: From Mansion to Campus https://qualla.com/the-nunnery-douglas/ St. Bridget's Chapel was restored to religious use in the 1880s and served as a place of worship for over a century. Then, in 1998, new owners evicted the congregation and the building was deconsecrated. The following year, the estate was acquired by the Isle of Man International...

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]]> Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/s/u/the-nunnery-douglas-wp/gcsu-the-nunnery-douglas-from-mansion-to-campus.mp3 0:06 5 full