THE BELLAPAIS MONASTERY
To reach his house, which is still a
private residence, head inland along the street to
the right of the restaurant. Walk about
200 m straight and upwards the steep village street
to get to it. The house will be on your left. This
kind of road is not suitable for vehicular access.
Buying and conversion of Durrell's house is
basically a subject matter of his Bitter Lemons .
The house is an evident conversion of a village
cottage, showing an ornamental glazed ceramic plaque
over the door saying: “Bitter Lemons: Lawrence Durrell lived here 1953-1956.” But the plate can be
easily missed. The track at the rear of the house
makes a pleasant return route passing on the way a
small complex of studios incorporating small bistro
offering refreshment and snacks. Following the path
downwards you will pass many old cottages abandoned
or restored, each making unique atmosphere of a
mountain village.
The cloister's courtyard lined with
the robust cypresses that were planted by Durrell's
Mr Kollis in the 1940s, is the monastery's most
characteristic section. It survives almost complete,
apart from the western side where it has fallen down
or been pulled apart and now looks out onto a
restaurant. The cloisters were built after the main
church was completed in the end of the thirteenth
century.
The brackets at the base of the corbels are
enlivened with both human and animal heads, and also
with very neat foliar carvings. You can spot the
night stair which is off the south side of the
cloister and was used by monks for their night-time
devotions without disturbing the other inhabitants
of the monastery. It was via these stairs that they
could reach the cloister roof, monk dormitory and
the treasury.
Today there is Northing left of the
dormitory except the windows in the wall overlooking
the cloister beside which is a small embrasure that
was used for monks' belongings, like prayer books,
crucifix or rosaries. There is very little to be
seen in the treasury.
The evidence of it makes the
three cases built into the walls and the large
hinges that held the doors. Two other staircases can
lead you to the cloisters. One of them passes
beneath the treasury room and the other from the
south-west corner of the cloister roof.
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