Place Name
St Egbert’s College was founded by Belgian monks, the Brothers of Mercy, sometime around 1919. The religious order came to England as refugees at the outbreak of World War One. It closed in 1971. St Egbert (AD639 – April 24, 729) was English but he longed to take missionary work on the Continent and hoped to convert of the pagan Germanic tribes in Friesland, an area that stretched from modern day Denmark to Belgium. Despite personally training many missionaries to undertake this work he never made it across the sea himself. On the occasion he was to go, an opportunity he relished, a mighty storm sank his vessel in the port the night before he was due to sail and this portent, along with visions of a fellow monk, convinced him it was not the will of God.
