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A place of peace and prayer

Nicholas Ferrar

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Early life

Nicholas Ferrar was born in London, the third child of six of Nicholas Ferrar and his wife Mary (née Woodnoth).

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A gifted scholar, he studied medicine at Clare College Cambridge from age 13 and was elected fellow in 1611. Due to poor health after contracting malaria (which was rife in the Fens), Nicholas was advised to travel to continental Europe to stay away from the damp air of Cambridgeshire. During his travels, he broadened his religious and medical education.

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The move to Little Gidding

Returning to London he took a position in the Virginia Company, in which his family was involved. When the company was threatened by King James, Nicholas entered Parliament to fight back. The battle was lost, the company was disbanded and the family fortune suffered.

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A life of prayer

Nicholas Ferrar was ordained deacon in 1626. He bought the manor of Little Gidding, and left London with his mother. His sister Susanna and his brother John and their spouses and children followed.

The household had a strict religious routine. Short services were held hourly in the Great Chamber of the house, from 6 in the morning until 8 at night, during which the entire Psalter was recited. In addition, prayers were said in the church twice in the Morning, and Evensong was conducted in the afternoon. In the early 1630s, a night watch was introduced, taking place in the small oratory in the house during which the Psalter was read again.

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Visitors

In Ferrar's time, King Charles I visited as did George Herbert. In 1936, T S Eliot visited the farm and church.

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Little Gidding House since the Ferrars

During the 1850s, William Hopkinson acquired the estate and, in his turn, set himself both to restore the church and to bring the estate into profitable farming use. By this time the Manor House was so dilapidated that it was demolished and in its place Hopkinson built the current red brick farm house, Manor Farm, and  the range of other farm buildings. Manor Farm house still stands though somewhat altered. The formation of the Friends of Little Gidding was proposed by Alan Maycock in 1946, and an executive council was appointed; it organised the first of many pilgrimages to Little Gidding in July 1947. From the 1970s into the 1990s much work was carried out on the buildings and the farm house became a centre for use by the members of firstly the Little Gidding Community and subsequently the Community of Christ the Sower. This community used the buildings for residential use before it dispersed in 1997.

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Poetry

As a result of the connections with T S Eliot and George Herbert, poetry has played a key role in the life of Little Gidding and the work of the House. There is an annual Eliot Festival, a regular Poetry Society Meeting (see the Events and News page for the dates of both of these events) and occasional days on Eliot run by Graham Fawcett (see link below).

 

Retreat Centre

The House is now vested in the Trustees of the Little Gidding Trust whose object is 'furthering the advancement of religion particularly by pilgrimages to the church at Little Gidding‘. The Trust supports the work of the House which operates as a Retreat Centre to enable prayer and pilgrimages to take place in the spirit, if not in the exact pattern of, the Ferrars.

 

 

Links

Small Pilgrim Places NetworkFerrar House is part of this network

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History - To see more details, visit British History Online 

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The Friends of Little Gidding website

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St John's Church Little Gidding website

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The Giddings village website

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George Herbert - hosted by The George Herbert in Bemerton Group and the Friends of St Andrew’s Bemerton 

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