The Sisters House, Bedford

The Sister’s house dates from the 1750’s and one of three buildings on St Peter’s Street built by members of the Unitas Fratum (Moravian Church) who came in Bedford as refugees in 1742. The three buildings consisted of their church and then a separate house for the single brothers and single sisters. The Sisters House can be found at 24 St Peter’s Street. The ‘Magna Britannia: Bedfordshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire’ by Samuel Lysons, T Cadell and W. Davies (1813) gives the following description ‘The Moravians or society of Unitas fratrum have had an establishment at Bedford ever since the year 1745. They have a neat chapel built in 1751. Adjoining it are houses for the single brethren and sisters who respectively live in community. In the sisters house are nearly forty single women who are employed in working tambour. Behind the chapel is a cemetery in which is a memorial of one of their bishops. It is kept extremely neat in four compartments the tombstones are all slat small and uniform as in their burial ground at Chelsea.’

In the 1990’s The Sisters House was used by the Pilgrims Housing Association for people with mental health issues. One member of staff had a strange experience as described by Andrew Watt in his article entitled ‘15 ghost sightings in Bedford’, which was published in the Bedfordshire on Sunday (10 March 2015). ‘In 1997 at Sister’s House (former nunnery adjacent to St Luke’s church), a male staff member woke to find a nun sitting on the end of his bed which then stood up and walked through the bedroom wall.’