Lodge 7100, The Cloisters, Letchworth, Herts, UK - Masonic Temples on Waymarking.com

In 1907, when Sir Ebenezer Howard’s dream of a first Garden City was in embryo, an eminent Quaker lady from London with a Quaker’s social conscience came to Letchworth. This was Miss Annie Jane Lawrence, the daughter of Mary and Alfred Lawrence whose prosperous forebears had all distinguished themselves by social and civic deeds - one becoming Lord Mayor of London, another being instrumental in the formation of the City and Guilds Institute.

Annie Jane leased a plot of land to the south of Letchworth on high ground and commissioned The Cloisters, designed by William Harrison Cowlishaw. For the purpose, building materials were imported from the many parts of the world visited by Miss Lawrence during her formative years. On 28 January 1907, Miss Lawrence dedicated The Cloisters to “the unity, eternal reality, through all diverse, temporary and fragmented seemings, the perfect inviolable whole, wherein sin and pain and death are not and all contradictions are reconciled, all discords resolved, I dedicate this building, confident that through progressive recognition of this unity, mankind will ascend to a full harmonious and joyful expression of life, in soul, in body and social organisation.”

The building was intended to be a school of psychology with accommodation for 20 residential students who would share the necessary domestic duties and live simply in fresh air, with the principal object of study being “how thought affects action and what causes and produces thought”. The main design of the institution was to provide conditions favourable to health in mind and body. The aim was to inaugurate a method of living which, while permitting a reasonable enjoyment of the benefits of a true, refined civilisation, would not involve the laying on of undue burden by privileged persons upon an unlettered class. It was a school for stimulating and encouraging young people to think for themselves about the meaning of life and what their attitude to it should be, so that they could advance and mature more than contemporary students following other teaching methods. The building was also designed to have conferences, lectures, music and drama performances, all in conjunction with, and for the furtherance of, the leading ideals.

There was very little teaching activity during the two world wars, but during the second the Ministry of Defence commandeered it and the Army moved in. Their total disregard for the architectural value of the building not only left it in a shocking state, but left the Grand Organ too damaged for restoration. For a while it was used as a store for manufacturing products. No local organisation wanted it due to the cost of repair and maintenance, and the future of The Cloisters was in grave doubt.

In March 1948, Miss Lawrence, now 83 and residing in a local nursing home, asked her local solicitor, Tom Bainbridge, to look into the possibility of its being used by the local Freemasons. A consortium of representatives from many local lodges met and formed a Trust. The Provincial Grand Lodge of Hertfordshire visited and, their blessing given, the prospect became a reality. The dear lady died aged 90 in August 1953, happy in the knowledge that her beloved Cloisters would continue in a similar vein to her original ideals.

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/14/2010 Pink Paisley visited it