Once they had to hide away, but now the country's leading Catholic public school and largest monastery is celebrating its 200th birthday. Nick Morrison discovers a community no longer under siege - but still largely out of sight.

ALTHOUGH it still looks impressive, you don't get any real sense of the size and grandeur of Ampleforth College as you drive past. A glimpse of the abbey church behind a couple of stone cottages, flanked by two five storey buildings, and just a hint of the expansive valley behind.

Turning off the road, itself a quiet back lane, you snake down the hill and the college gradually opens out in front of you, eventually revealed to dominate one of the valley's flanks. But apart from the college, it is just rolling fields and hills as far as the eye can see, across the floor of the valley and up the other side.

It is not hard to guess why, 200 years ago this year, a community of monks chose this tranquil spot to put down their roots after a decade of wandering. But the fact that it is largely hidden from public view brings to mind what must have been a great advantage of this spot when they arrived.

"By the end of the 18th Century there was deep anti-Catholic prejudice and so Catholics were cautious. The first churches built towards the end of the 18th Century were built in hidden places," says Father Leo Chamberlain, headmaster of Ampleforth College for the last ten years.

Unfriendly though the welcome may have been, it was at least better than the violent anti-clericalism which had seized the French Revolution after 1792, forcing the monks to leave their monastery at Dieulouard in Lorraine in north-eastern France, moving to Shropshire and Lancashire before finally settling in North Yorkshire, a few miles from the market town of Helmsley.

Despite the hostility towards Catholics in England, which was gradually waning, Ampleforth was not chiefly chosen for its seclusion, but because a benefactor happened to leave a house there to a member of the community, Fr Anselm Bolton. In 1802, Fr Bolton was joined by three other monks, and a year later the school, which had originally been at Dieulouard, re-opened.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Benedictine community at Ampleforth, with the Abbey and College side by side in the valley. With 98 monks, the monastery is the largest in the UK, and with past students which include the late Cardinal Basil Hume, Angel of the North sculptor Antony Gormley and the late Duke of Norfolk, the college is the most prestigious Roman Catholic independent school in England.

"Originally, it was for the Catholic families of England, so they didn't have to go to Protestant schools, where their religion was vilified," says Fr Leo. "Putting it more positively, the whole thing is an integration of our lives, so that the spiritual and secular were not opposed but were complementary, and for that you need a Catholic school. Ampleforth is not the biggest, although it is the biggest boarding school and the best known. The school got a reputation as early as the 1930s for academic excellence, which we still keep."

Its academic record is indeed impressive, with one in five GCSE results a starred A, and almost 97 per cent at C or above. Nearly one in three A level results are at A grade and more than 80 per cent are C or above. And, perhaps as a result of this academic record, numbers are booming. Ampleforth has 510 students now and Father Leo expects substantial growth next term.

Presumably most parents choose Ampleforth because it provides a Catholic education, but a surprisingly high proportion - one in five - are non-Catholic, predominantly Church of England. As you would expect on a site shared with monks, referred to as "the community", religion plays a prominent part in college life - there are daily prayers and each house has a chaplain - but the only compulsory element is a weekly mass, and Fr Leo is reluctant to attribute Ampleforth's popularity directly to the one thing that makes it distinct from the vast majority of other independent schools.

"I believe parents are looking for what we're saying we're about, and they're identifying with it, which is a holistic education in which the young will do as well as they can, academically," he says.

"We pray together - and prayers are prayers, they're not just time to make announcements - and everyone comes together for Sunday mass and everyone studies Christian theology. We're an identifiably Catholic place, which will welcome other people, as the Gospel bids us to.

"We try to rehabilitate where we can, and we get quite modern crime. I had to see a boy yesterday about a quite serious abuse of computers."

At this, coming out of the blue as it does, I'm ashamed to say my ears prick up. After all, boarding schools are no strangers to scandal, with Ampleforth having its fair share in the past, and I was expecting revelations of downloading pornography. In the end, I was left feeling rather humbled as the transgression turned out to be nothing more sinful than unauthorised playing of computer games.

Fr Leo says the students gain a strong sense of community and friendship from their time at Ampleforth, and people often say to him that they have never met a nasty Amplefordian. And certainly, the students assembled to meet me in the college library seem articulate and confident.

It was only this year that the college admitted girls to its sixth form, with 19 now and nearer 40 expected this year. Among that first intake was Elizabeth Abbott, 16, from Darlington, who had been at Teesside High School but opted to go to Ampleforth for her A-levels.

"I just needed a change, and I came here for a visit and liked the atmosphere. There is no pressure to become Catholic if you're not, but there is a reasonable amount of compulsory religious activity," she says

"At first the community is noticeable, and for people coming here from outside it might strike them as strange to have monks walking around, but now it is completely normal."

Francis Townsend, 17, arrived at Ampleforth as a 13-year-old, on the recommendation of friends of his parents, at that time living in Australia. "I think Ampleforth probably builds stronger relationships. On quite a mundane level, it is not in a town so there isn't quite as much to do, so you spend more time getting to know people better."

He says Ampleforth also benefits in not being particularly selective, giving it a broad spectrum of students, or as broad as it is possible to get when fees are almost £17,000 a year for boarders and not far short of £9,000 for day students.

But while Catholicism played a large part in his parents' choice, he plays down the religious aspect of life at Ampleforth. "Morning and evening prayers are very functional - they are to make sure you get out of bed in the morning and are in your room at night.

"I don't think that when people leave the school they're necessarily going to be carrying on the religious practices they have been taught here. I can't see myself at 20 being bothered to go to mass after a Saturday night out," he says.

But while that may be a realistic assessment for most Amplefordians, for Elizabeth, studying in such an environment is bound to make a difference. "I don't think you can leave without it having some sort of impact on you," she says.

As I return to Fr Leo's study to take my leave, his parting words are a reminder of what he says Ampleforth is all about. It may have been set up to give the children of Catholic families an education, but now it is not just about producing good Catholics, or even good scholars, important though those aims are.

As Fr Leo says: "Above all, I want them to have a sense of purpose in their step."