The church was consecrated on 20 August 1844, the feast day of Saint Bernard, but was to remain unfinished for more than ninety years. Only the nave of Pugin's monastery church was built due to a lack of funds. It was then walled off at the point where Pugin had planned a crossing tower with spire, and eastern chancel. A makeshift two-bell turret was fashioned over the eastern end of the unfinished church so that the monks could be called to office, and a small quatrefoil window of the Virgin and child by William Warrington, a medieval-revival stained-glass artist, was inserted under the gable.