Thank you for finding your way to St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth, UK - a home of Benedictine prayer, ancient wisdom and open doors. Our greatest joy is simple: welcoming the public to pray with us. 

Every day, the Abbey Church is alive with a rhythm of worship that has shaped souls for fifteen centuries and continues here in the Surrey hills with undimmed devotion.

You are warmly invited - whatever your background, belief or story - to join us for:

The Divine Office, sung seven times each day (a shared cadence of psalms, chant, silence and praise)

Many first time visitors tell us the same thing: they came out of curiosity and stayed for the peace. If you have never experienced sung prayer in both English and Latin, carried by Gregorian Chant, you will discover a form of worship that feels both timeless and urgently needed today.

Alongside our daily liturgy, we host a full calendar of well loved public events, including:

1. Catholicism study mornings with coffee, conversation and teaching that welcomes both Catholics and those exploring the faith
   
2. Regular study mornings on Catholic belief, spirituality and practice
   
3. Cultural evenings and talks, exploring literature, music, history, poetry and the great questions of God, meaning and community
   
4. Special themed events throughout the year, blessed by the Abbey’s unique setting, fellowship and hospitality
   

These gatherings share the same spirit as our prayer: thoughtful, rooted, unhurried, welcoming and open to all.

Our life follows the Rule of St Benedict, a guide to living well written around 1,500 years ago, offering wisdom in stability, balance, humility, community, work, prayer and peace. In an age of noise, haste, distraction and uncertainty, St Benedict’s invitation to listen with the ear of the heart speaks with startling freshness. This ancient monastic wisdom is not a museum piece - it is a living compass, more relevant now than ever, as many visitors including a significant number of young people tell us.

The best way to experience it is not to read about it, but to taste it in real time.

For those wanting to step more deeply into this tradition, we offer a Monastic Guest House, open to the public year round by donation. Here, visitors come to:

-Pause and pray within a working monastery

-Experience daily Mass and the Divine Office as part of their retreat

-Find spiritual renewal and perspective

-Explore the enduring wisdom of St Benedict in a lived setting

-Discern a vocation, deepen their prayer or simply rest their soul for a while

People travel to us from across Britain and around the world, drawn by the same hope: a desire for peace, spiritual grounding and a place where God feels near.

We are an active and energetic growing Community of ten Benedictine monks (Order of St Benedict) plus a number of potential monks, part of the Subiaco Cassinese Benedictine Congregation, founded in 1856 in Kent and present in Chilworth near Guildford in southern England since 2011. Our mission is prayer and contemplation, supported by monastic work, study and community life. We make and offer a small range of handmade Abbey goods including beeswax skin creams, furniture polish and Chilworth Rosary beads and we serve the wider Church through preserving Benedictine monasticism, study and writing.

Prayer is our beginning, middle and end. But it is not prayer for us alone. It is prayer for the world, shared with the world, for the world.

So come when you can. Stay when you need. Pray when you arrive.

May God bless you and give you peace.