About Douai Abbey

​

The Douai Park Recreation grounds  take its name from the historic Benedictine Abbey and ongoing community  The current location and naming of the area around it relates to the reforming of the original Parisian community in Douai in Northern France following the French Revolution circa 1820.

​

In 1903 the French government expelled the community and it was welcomed by the Bishop of Portsmouth and took up residence in the Woolhampton Area in what is now known colloquially as Douai Abbey in West Berkshire.

​

Douai Abbey took over St Mary’s College, Woolhampton, which overlooks the Kennet Valley, in Berkshire, and it was then to this community that the college and school at Douai transferred. The college had been the direct successor of a small school run by the last Chaplain to the Catholic family that in the 1830’s owned Woolhampton Manor.

​

Thus began the association of the park land with the Abbey and why it is called DPRA

​

• If you would like to know more about the origins of the land that was once part of Douai School, click here.

• If  you would like to know a little more about the origins of the Abbey then here is a reference History of Douai Abbey which originates from Paris in 1615.