About St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth
Home of the Chilworth Benedictines
St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth is one of four Benedictine monasteries from the Order of Saint Benedict in the UK forming the English Province of the international Benedictine Congregation of the Subiaco Cassinese Congregation. Other monasteries from other Congregations of the Order of Saint Benedict exist in the UK, for example those of the English Benedictine Congregation (Ampleforth, Downside, Worth, etc). We are located within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton. Our community's foundation and first home was in Ramsgate (formerly St Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate, 1856 - 2011) where we resided for over 150 years before relocating to our new home here in Chilworth in 2011.Our Abbey community was founded as a result of the invitation made by Bishop Thomas Grant, the first Bishop of Southwark, to the Italian abbot Dom Pietro Casaretto, to send monks from St Benedict's own monastery at Subiaco to undertake a mission at Ramsgate.By 1856, arrangements between Bishop Grant and Abbot Casaretto were concluded and the first monk, Dom Wilfrid Alcock, arrived to take charge at the Ramsgate mission and our initial community home which had been made possible thanks to the building of a Gothic church by the famous Gothic Revivalist architect Augustus Welby Pugin, which was donated to the Diocese of Southwark before his premature death in 1852.The Community relocated to our current home (Chilworth near Guildford in Surrey) in November 2011 and we now live work and pray in what was a Franciscan Friary of the Order of Friars Minor (OFMs).
History
The foundation stone for our Abbey here in Chilworth was laid in 1890 when the Victorian building was built as a Franciscan Friary, which the location remained until 2010. The architect of the now Grade II listed Benedictine Abbey Church and monastery was F. A. Walters, who also designed St John's Seminary at Wonersh and Buckfast Abbey. The overall cost of building the church and Friary (about £7,000) was met from a bequest of Mary Anne Alliott, an aunt of Father Arthur Wells, who is regarded as the founder of the Friary.
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Our previous home at St Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate
From 1865, our Benedictine community lived, prayed and worked at our home at St Augustine's Abbey in Ramsgate, Kent. It was the first monastery to be constructed after the Reformation. We also ran an independent school there for 130 years until 1995 when it closed; we always love to hear from all Old Augustinians and our friends from those days.
St Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate
Our initial home and foundation from which our community has flourished
Abbot's Chair
Community Room at Ramsgate
Chapel
One of our most popular rooms for community gatherings
Cloisters
The Cloister at St Augustine's Ramsgate