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Douai Abbey




Douai Abbey is a Benedictine Abbey at Woolhampton , near Thatcham , in the English county of Berkshire , and part of the Roman Catholic Diocese Of Portsmouth . Monks from the monastery of St. Edmund's, in Douai , France , came to Woolhampton in 1903 when the congregation left France as a result of Anti-clerical legislation.


HISTORY

The community of St. Edmund was formed in Paris in 1615 by Dom Gabriel Gifford , later Archbishop Of Rheims and primate of France. With his backing the community flourished. Expelled from Paris during the Revolution, the community took over the vacant buildings of the community of St Gregory's in Douai in 1818.