THE Press revealed recently how an historic York convent is to be converted into student accommodation.

The remaining nuns of the Poor Clare Colettines plan to remain in the York area by creating a new convent in a converted house.

But plans have been submitted to convert their home of the last 140 years - St Joseph's Convent off Lawrence Street - into student quarters.

We felt the changes to one of York's most distinctive religious communities merited a a tribute on our Yesterday Once More pages.

So we looked back through our archives to uncover the photographs on these pages, all taken in the last 20-40 years.

We also came across a piece written by Evening Press reporter Simon Schofield almost 30 years ago, which gives a wonderful (and very rare) glimpse into life within the convent.

The convent was founded in 1864 by a group of sisters who came to York from a convent in Bruges. The buildings were designed by a local Roman Catholic ecclesiastical architect, George Goldie, and were built between 1870 and 1875.

At its peak during the 1940s, the convent was home to more than 40 nuns, but numbers slowly declined over the years.

In December 1985, Evening Press reporter Mr Schofield was granted an interview with the Mother Abess as the community prepared for Christmas

This is an edited extract from what he wrote:

Like most people, the nuns of a strict order in York settle down after breakfast on Christmas Day to open their presents.

For once, the convent's austere walls are relieved by simple decorations, and echo to the sound of voices.

"But the presents would probably horrify most people," the Mother Abbess told me in a conversation through the iron bars that separate the convent from the outside world.

"We might get a packet of soap powder, or some bars of soap, or some toothpaste - things we need.

"And usually we have what we call a 'big present.' One time it was some curtains for our cells, and another it was a mop."

The Mother Abbess, Sister Mary Bernard, who heads a 21-strong community at the St Joseph's Monastery of Poor Clare Collettines in Lawrence Street, is one of the very few to have any but absolutely necessary contact with the outside world.

In an exclusive interview, she broke off from the community's intensive preparations for Christmas to answer with frankness all my questions about a lifestyle which is both fascinating and little known.

On a normal day, the nuns rise for the first time at midnight, after having gone to bed in their single cells at about 8pm.

In pitch darkness, the community, whose members range in age from their mid-twenties to 78, often pray for the dead.

"We have an Office of the Dead. It's very beautiful, and we find the bereaved are consoled if we can say that for them."

After an hour's prayer, the community once more returns to sleep only to rise at dawn, between 5am and 5.30am.

An hour's quiet prayer is followed by a light meal - the nuns are all vegetarians - and then chores. At 1pm, there is another short Office, and lunch.

The afternoon is divided between chores, free time, meditation and Scripture-reading until Vespers at 5.45pm.

After another light meal come 30 minutes of recreation: the only time when the rule on speaking only when necessary is relaxed.

The community does not have a vow of silence but meals are taken to the sound of Scripture-reading and the rule is that the sisters speak only when necessary, apart from their half-hour's recreation.

That is a chance for the community to come together to talk. "It's like one conversation in a group," said the Mother Abbess. "I get more news than anybody else, so I might talk about that. But it's amazing what we find to talk about. We are never short of anything to say."

Simon Schofield (writing in December 1985)

York Press: 4 December 1970 Poor Clare's Convent Sister Mary Joseph watering the winter lettuce in the walled greenhouse. (5972574)
1970: Poor Clare's Convent Sister Mary Joseph watering the winter lettuce in the walled greenhouse.

York Press:
Sister Catherine, left, and Sister Martha preparing eggs for sale on September 22, 1979

York Press:
A nun walks along a corridor at St Joseph’s Covent in 1992

York Press:
 Twenty-two sisters of the Poor Clares Convent in a photograph taken in April, 1982