St Ann's Academy

PLACES

Chapel

Humboldt Gates

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Convent

he Convent section of St. Ann's was out of bounds for all but the Professed Sisters and the Novices, the young women in training to become nuns. It was added in the expansion of 1886 and was a matching copy of the original wing of the Academy, built in 1871. It was in this area that the nuns went to eat, sleep, look after administration, study and meditate in peace, away from the noise of the school. The dining room was known as a refectory, and held long tables where the women of the convent sat together for meals.

The sleeping quarters in this part of the building were very simple. It

St. Anns today

was expected that the rooms were only to be used for sleeping, so the furniture saw very little use. In 1973, the last pupils to graduate from St. Ann's went up to the Sister's quarters to change into their graduation dresses. It was the first time any of them had seen that part of the building, and student Theresa Bassett-Price remembers being surprised at how well kept the old furniture was. The narrow beds, dressers and chairs in each cell, the area occupied by each Sister were, in many cases the same pieces of furniture used when the building was first built, almost 90 years before.

The rear of the Convent building faced Beacon Hill Park, a large park in the city of Victoria. Noises would drift in through the windows, and Sisters remember lying awake at night, trying to fall asleep over the sound of peacocks crying in the nearby grounds.

Although the private nature of the Convent contributed to the peaceful atmosphere and even the respect the students had for this mysterious section of the Academy, it has also meant that there are very few old photographs and other types of information for historical research. In a way, the privacy of the former use for this area of the building continues, even though the Convent is now closed. In the restoration of the 1990s, the Convent became government office space.

Contact St. Anns Academy at stanns.academy@gems2.gov.bc.ca
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