ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the direct role that women played in the design and construction of convent architecture, through a close reading of a building project undertaken by a group of Carmelite nuns in mid-twentieth-century Wales. The ‘building nuns of Presteigne’ as they were subsequently styled by the local press, used instruction manuals to learn skills such as bricklaying, masonry and carpentry in order to complete the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Thérèse. The nuns purposely generated publicity to attract funds and the enterprise became the subject not only of local news articles but also of a Pathé news film. Though this was presented by the press as a unique project, it was in fact relatively common for male and female religious to engage in manual construction. The chapter argues that the chapel at Presteigne offers valuable insights into the unique degree of autonomy that, compared with women in wider society, mid-century female religious enjoyed and also into a long-established architectural tradition that enabled women to sidestep social conventions.
