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Churchill’s Beguinage

The last beguine Marcella Pattyn was born in Thysstad, the Belgian Congo, in 1920 and died in the beguinage of Kortrijk in West Flanders in 2013.

At the time many were tempted to mark this as the final chapter in a legacy dating back eight-hundred years, but I would not be surprised if the beguines made at least a partial comeback.

One can easily imagine a town like Oxford hosting a beguinage for the many pious ladies pursuing lifelong academic interests but seeking some sense of Christian life in common. (And the perfect property for it has just come on the market if a patron with deep pockets can be found).

Who were the beguines? As The Economist explains:

Appearing around 1200 in the Low Countries, the Beguines’ semi-religious lifestyle forged a third way for women. Though its chaste sisters, of all ranks and fortunes, prayed together, they were not bound by permanent vows. Beguines belonged to no religious order, so made their own rules.

They lived apart from society in beguinages — self-sufficient clusters of individual houses grouped around a church—but could enter the town at will (though they had to return at dusk). That allowed for an exceptional degree of independence, unknown by their medieval sisters, whether wives or nuns. Even a married woman could become a Beguine (though few did: celibacy was prized).

Most Flemish beguinages were built in urban communities, near hospitals and leper houses. The sisters ministered to the poor and sick in their own infirmaries or at nearby hospitals. But they also washed raw wool and laundered sheets, earning their livelihood through Europe’s booming cloth industry; and, later, by making lace and weaving. Others worked on farms and in gardens.

No visit to Amsterdam is complete without an exploration of its Begijnhof. Somehow, the beguines of the city miraculously survived “The Alteration” of 1578, when Amsterdam’s Catholic city fathers were overthrown, seized, and expelled by a group of Calvinists.

The old chapel was given over to the city’s English Reformed community and many of the founders of New England worshipped there before heading off to land at Plymouth Rock. The Catholic beguines made do with a clandestine chapel built in one of the houses and the last beguine of Amsterdam died in 1971.

The Great Begijnhof of Leuven is likewise well worth a wander: it is an entire quarter covering ten streets. Having fallen into disrepair while owned by the state as alms-houses, it was purchased by the University in the 1960s and restored under the guidance of Professor (and Baron) Raymond Lemaire to house students and academics.

That inescapable man Sir Winston Spencer Churchill KG OM CH &c. counted painting amongst his many pastimes. A year after the British voter gave him the boot and expelled him from Downing Street, Churchill was amidst his typically extensive travels when he found time to visit Belgium and paint the beguinage of Bruges.

The sisters depicted are not actually beguines but Benedictines. They arrived at the Princely Beguinage Ten Wijngaerde in 1927 when the Grand Mistress’s house and adjacent quarters were converted into a convent. The overall site is now owned by the city of Bruges, but four Benedictine sisters remain. The other houses are run as secular alms-houses and sheltering for single women.

Churchill’s ‘Le Béguinage, Bruges’ is up for auction at Bonham’s later this month and the auctioneers provide Churchill’s secretary Grace Hamblin’s explanation of how she came to own it:

He put [a different painting] up and then he said, ‘What do you think of it?’ It was one of his most terrible paintings. And he must have seen my expression, because I wouldn’t dare to criticise it, I promise you, I know nothing about painting.

I said ‘Well, it’s not my favourite.’ And he said, ‘Which is your favourite?’ And I said, ‘Well, I love the Béguinage.’ So he said, ‘Oh, well, we’ll put that here.’

Some years later it went on exhibition with others to New York. When it came back and I was helping him unpack it, he said, ‘This is yours. Take it home.’ That’s all there was to it. Just like that… enough to kill anybody. I couldn’t believe it… to receive one of his paintings, and from him!’

The secretary had good taste.

My own collection of art by a parliamentarian — still just one item — started in a similarly haphazard manner.

I was walking down a street in Westminster one day when I came across a certain poet-painter-politician who shall remain nameless. He was parked in front of his house and packing one of his sons’ possessions into the back of his car to head off to university but was making an absolute hash of it.

I intervened saying “No, no, no: that’s no way to do it at all” and promptly re-organised the assembled items into a much more efficient arrangement. He thanked me and, as recompense for my small service, handed me a painting he had done of Santa Maria della Salute in Venice which still hangs in my somewhat meagre collection.

If you’d like to start your own collection of art by parliamentary painters, Churchill’s beguinage is going for a guide price of £300,000 to £500,000.

Published at 3:05 pm on Monday 10 November 2025. Categories: Art Church History Tags: , , , .
Comments

One of your more beguiling efforts of late.

And “inescapable” is just right for that rogue Churchill – but at least his art is the least of his faults.

— BT van Nostrand 10 Nov 2025 10:13 pm
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