The Society of the Sacred Mission (SSM) came to Durham in the mid-1980s at the invitation of Michael Ball, then Bishop of Jarrow, in order to help encourage vocations, particularly from some of the more working class parishes of the diocese.
Occupying the former vicarage of St Nicholas parish church, St Antony’s Priory housed a community of professed brothers whose educational and pastoral work was particularly focused on helping young men experience the Christian life in community, some of whom went on to discern a vocation to ministry within the Church of England. During this time, the award-winning chapel, designed by Sarah Menin, was built in 1990, the first monastic building in Durham since the reformation.
In the early 2000s, the last SSM brethren moved out and St Antony’s became an ‘ecumenical spirituality project’, led first by David Bosworth, a Methodist minister, and his wife Linda, and then until 2018 by Paul Golightly, also a Methodist minister, and his wife Joan.
The work began with a programme of quiet days and workshops to explore Christian spirituality. Over the years this evolved into an extensive ministry of hospitality for groups and individuals wishing to spend time in the tranquil setting of the Priory. One of the most significant outcomes of this work has been the development of training and mentoring for spiritual directors, and by extension, the provision of spiritual direction for a great number of people across the diocese of Durham and beyond.
Over the years, the ecumenical spirituality project developed a wide range of programmes, including support for people in recovery from addictions, as well as a variety of other courses, workshops and outreach initiatives intended to lead people deeper into prayer and spirituality. Towards the end of this period, the Priory became a centre for Capacitar training, a multi-cultural popular education approach to wellbeing and self-empowerment comprising simple Tai Chi and movement, visualisations, meditation, emotional freedom techniques and energy work.
In September 2018, Nicholas Buxton, an Anglican Priest, was appointed to implement a new vision for St Antony’s. This included a revival of the religious life of the Priory, with a regular timetable of daily and weekly worship in the beautiful chapel, as well as the further development of St Antony’s as a Christian spirituality centre.
In 2019, St Michael’s Priory, Willen (formerly known as ‘The Well’) closed, leaving St Antony’s as the only remaining operation of SSM in the UK.
Today, our principal activities remain focussed on the Priory’s long-standing work in the provision and training of spiritual directors, as well as retreats and quiet days for both groups and individuals, and a variety of other activities, including meditation workshops and speaker events – all of it grounded in the daily round of prayer.
In 2025 the Herbert Kelly Institute for Anglican Religious Life opened in an adjacent building on the Priory site. The redeveloped facilities include include a theological library, office space and archive storage rooms. As many religious communities in the Church of England face declining numbers, we believe the Institute will not only play a significant role in preserving the legacy of Anglican religious life, but also help to inform its future, such as by developing a research hub for religious archives and the study of Anglican religious life.
SSM’s foundational aims refer to increasing ‘the number of those who give their lives to the divine service’, the ‘conversion and perfection of souls’, and the ‘cultivation of divine science’, with a particular emphasis on enabling those who might not otherwise have opportunity. These aims, which inform everything we do, can be summarised as ‘promoting vocation, nurturing faith and spirituality, and encouraging theological learning’.
Though SSM may, in time, cease to be a religious order (in the UK), the essential work of the Society continues, albeit – as the foundational aims themselves anticipate – in new ways. We may not train priests anymore, but we do train spiritual directors; St Antony’s isn’t a monastery, but it is a praying community. To borrow from Kelly, the idea is still working!