The land on which Emmaus now stands was originally the site of a 12th century Manor House. Part of this house still stands and the historic ruins are a popular view next to the Emmaus café gardens and children’s play area. They are a scheduled Ancient monument and a Grade 11 Listed Building. This was built from local flints and the Emmaus property is itself surrounded by flint walls. The original Norman Manor House is recorded in the Domesday Book and was owned by the de Warrene family, Norman nobility. You can find out more about the Manor House on the next stop of the tour.

By the 1800s, the old Norman House had become a ruin although some of its flints provided building materials for a castle garden folly in the grounds.

In 1807 a new Georgian manor house was built. This was known as Portslade Manor House and was built by John Borrer, churchwarden at St. Nicolas Church, for his new wife Katherine.

In 1901, the house was bought by Kathleen Nelson. In 1904, it was given to the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, an order of religious Sisters. Its founder, Frances Taylor, had been a nurse in the Crimean War and throughout her life was concerned for the poverty she saw about her. It was converted into St Marye’s convent.

The special work of the Sisters was the care of women and they started a laundry in Portslade as a suitable means of self-support. The laundry is now the building that houses the second-hand Superstore. The different areas of the working laundry can still be identified from the differences in the flooring – hard standing on the ‘wet’ side and wood on the ‘dry’ side.

The café at Emmaus was the dining room of the nuns. The regime was strict with silence enforced for much of the day.

In 1933 the chapel, which had been commissioned by the nuns, was competed. Compulsory Mass was held there at 7am each morning for both nuns and female residents.

The Sisters sold the land to the north of Drove Road and it is now Peter Gladwin School. They left the Convent in 1996 and the Emmaus Community opened in February, 1997. The Manor House did not meet modern health and safety standards for accommodation, so Emmaus have rented out the building as offices to like-minded organisations.

The concern for the disadvantaged continues in Emmaus today.

 Follies at Emmaus

A folly is an ornamental building – often very costly – that has no practical use or purpose. In 18th century Britain it was a must-have fashion for wealthy landowners to have picturesque gardens featuring ‘ancient ruins.’ These ruins were often re-creations of Chinese pagodas, Roman temples, Gothic castle ruins or even Egyptian pyramids.

There are two follies at Emmaus: The tower which looks like a castle, and the other is the grotto. Technically, the grotto is not a folly, but was a specially commissioned construction as a centrepiece for worship. 

John Borrer, a local wealthy landowner, purchased the manor estate in 1807. He built the tower folly, which you can see standing next to the manor house, out of stones from the original 11th century manor house next door ( now the Old Manor Ruins). It seems illogical that he created a fake ancient ruin, when a real 800 year old manor house was still standing 30 metres away.

The second folly is next to the outdoor seating area of the Emmaus café. This was built to represent a cave grotto. It depicts the visitation of the Virgin Mary to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 at Lourdes in France.