[The Foreigner] There have been religious links between Britain and Norway throughout recorded history. One of the first known took place in 1147.

Abbot Philippus of Kirkstead in Linconshire and 12 Cistercian monks left Britain to build a monastery on the island of Hovedøya in the Oslo Fjord in that year, just 600 metres offshore from the city of Oslo waterfront.

They arrived at Hovedøya to discover that they weren’t the first to fancy an ecclesiastical building on the island. They found a church there, apparently put up by English merchantmen, as it was consecrated to Saint Edmund – the King of East Anglia martyred because he had been killed in 869 in battle against the Vikings.

The church was one of two in Norway known to have had a double-nave floor plan. The other is a church in the old city part of Oslo, built about the same time. It was consecrated to Saint Clement, the Pope martyred about the year 99 because he was thrown from a ship into the Black Sea with an anchor tied around his neck.

This monastery prospered, but was disbanded during the Reformation of the early 16th century. Only its ruins remain today, and three centuries were to pass before another church consecrated to Saint Edmund was built in Oslo.

Norway and Britain had long traded, but it was the industrial revolution that brought British residents in number to Norway to support the nascent industrialisation of the country. By 1878, the British Consulate estimated that 200 British citizens resided in Oslo. As Anglicans, they worshiped, usually in private gatherings, as there was no Anglican church in the city.

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