"I did everything in my power to
develop the monastic spirit there"

The oil painting in the Stanbrook refectory has caught Father Laurence's sensitive, gentle, yet playful character; perhaps also his simplicity of heart. As a boy he had been adept at swarming up trees. The old agility came to the fore when he was supervising the building of the church at Stanbrook. Climbing fearlessly past the scaffolding and up the turret, he set a cross at the tower's summit.

Father Laurence, an Ampleforth monk, completes the trio of holy men who have played an important role in the community's history. Appointed vicar, or chaplain, in 1863, he found at Stanbrook a desire to restore the full monastic observance that had been rudely shattered when the nuns were expelled from Cambrai in 1793. But the clock could not be turned back seventy years.

Instead he passed on with enthusiasm what he had received at first hand from Dom Gueranger, abbot of Solesmes: an understanding that the public choral celebration of Mass and the Office is not only of prime importance in the monastic day as an act of divine worship, but also central to the individual's spiritual growth. With the support of Abbess Gertrude d'Aurillac Dubois, he provided the means to implement this vision: a grounding in Latin and a fine patristic library, together with a church where the liturgy could be celebrated with beauty and solemnity. A printing press was set up in 1876 and new monastery buildings gradually erected.

When Father Laurence died, he left a community flourishing in number and vitality. He is buried in the church that is his monument.