Description:This postcard view shows Hawkesyard Priory when the Priory buildings were quite new.
In earlier years the adjacent house and grounds were known as Armitage Park, a mid-18th century house, which was originally built by Nathaniel Lister. In 1839 it was bought by the widow of Josiah Spode III, who lived there with her son Josiah IV. The house and gardens were much improved by the Spode’s. Josiah Spode IV became converted to Roman Catholicism and when he died in 1893, he left Hawkesyard to his niece Miss Helen Gulson for her lifetime and then to the Dominicans. Josiah Spode IV and Helen Gulson were benefactors of Hawkesyard, but she had the freedom to act in her lifetime which she chose to do. Miss Gulson made a diary entry prior to the Church being built when she had a curious dream "I looked out of my bedroom window at Hawkesyard and in the Park, towards the garden, stood our Lord, all alone ... I could never account for that dream apparition until now; when it has come into my mind, that upon that spot where our Lord stood ... the new Church is to be built.". She added a note later she was sure that the High Altar now stood on that very spot, the more remarkable as the Church is orientated in the opposite way to that which is usual.
Sometimes known as the Chapel, the Pro Cathedral and Priory Church of St Thomas was built by the Dominicans, who also built a Priory here between 1896-1914 to the design of Edward Goldie. They named it Hawkesyard Priory. The organ case in the chapel dates from 1700 and came originally from Eton Chapel. The Dominicans used the house as a school re-naming it Spode House.
Over the years the Hawkesyard Estate has been redeveloped and (in January 2021) there is a Golf Club, Conference Centre, Wedding Venue and the Hawkesyard Priory Nursing Home.
This postcard was franked on 28 January 1905 in Rugeley and sent to an address in Rugeley.