• Former Cluniac monastery dedicated to St. Augustine, in Daventry, Northamptonshire, England, and ancient See of Lincoln. 

• It was founded before 1109 by Hugh of Leicester, first at Preston Capes and then near the parish church of Daventry. An earlier endowment of four canons was appropriated for the foundation, and four Benedictine monks — as at nearby Saint Andrews, Northampton — were brought from the Abbey of la Charité-sur-Loire. 

• In 1221 the Bishop, acting under papal instructions, took charge of the priory, and from that time La Charité exercised no control over it. The founder's family continued to act as patrons and allowed free election of priors after 1331. 

• Daventry was well endowed with churches and continued to add to its possessions in the 14th century, when there were regularly 18 monks there. The priory was dissolved by papal authority in 1525 to form part of Wolsey's college at Oxford, subsequently Christ Church.

 

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Our Lady of Charity & St Augustine’s RC Church

1880: 8 Dec. First resident Priest, Rev Thomas Fitzgerald. 

1880: 15 Dec. House Chapel, London Rd, 1st Mass. 

1882: 16 April Converted stables, London Rd. 

1916: 22 Oct Our Lady &, St Augustine, New St opened. 

1972: 22 Nov. Our Lady &, St Augustine, London Rd, Blessed. 

Oct 2019 Consecration.
32 London Rd, Daventry, NN11 4BZ

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• The current church of St Augustine’s is an interesting design, especially in terms of the original internal layout, but this was radically remodelled about ten years after the church was built.

• The Daventry mission was established in 1880 and Mass was said in the Presbytery which occupied the former ‘Rifleman’ public house. Stables to the rear were converted to become St Mark’s church in 1882, paid for by Lord Braye of Stanford Hall. 

• The congregation outgrew this building and the church was moved to the old Grammar School in New Street, opening as Our Lady of Charity and St Augustine in 1916. 

• In 1961 the Fox and Hounds pub on London Road was purchased as a site for a future church. 

• In 1969 the Daventry Town Development Scheme was approved for the expansion of the town as a Birmingham overspill. 

• Against this background of expansion the present church was built as a dual-purpose church and hall; the foundation stone laid on 3 October 1971 and the official opening was on 22 November 1972. 

• Ellis Williams Partnership were the architects. 

• In 1989 a new Church Hall was built next to the church and at some point during the 1980s the church was reordered for dedicated church use. 

• The Church was again fully refurbished in 2015 /16.

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References:

'Houses of Cluniac monks: The priory of St Augustine, Daventry', in A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 2, ed. R M Serjeantson, W R D Adkins (London, 1906), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/northants/vol2/pp109-114 [accessed 7 March 2025].