Monastic fantastic: Luxury hotels converted from monasteries | usatoday.com
From 1920 to 1970, when Sisters of the Order of Notre Dame occupied Ashdown Park, a 19th century country house-turned-convent in Ashdown Forest, Sussex, in the south of England, living conditions were suitably spartan. Nuns slept in tiny rooms in the East Wing with space for little more than a bed, a nightstand and water jug and bowl for washing. Days were spent in the chapel on the grounds, or walking the cold corridors of the mansion contemplating devotion to the Almighty in near-total silence.
