St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth

Welcome to St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth Thank you for finding your way to St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth, UK—a home of Roman Catholic 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: - Daily Mass at 9am - Sunday Mass at 10am - 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. Gather. Learn. Reflect. 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. Ancient Wisdom. Present Hope. 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. Stay. Pray. Reset. 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. A Community of Prayer 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. One Guiding Heartbeat 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. Rt Rev Dom Paulinus Greenwood OSB Abbot of St Augustine's Abbey, Chilworth

St Augustine’s Abbey, Chilworth, is a Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery in Surrey, in the south of England, about one hour from London. Its roots stretch back to the nineteenth century, with deep connections to the revival of Benedictine monasticism in England after the Reformation. The community originally began not in Surrey, but in Ramsgate, Kent, where it was founded in 1856 following an invitation by Bishop Thomas Grant of Southwark to the Benedictine Subiaco Cassinese Congregation. The aim was to establish a Benedictine presence connected with the mission of St Augustine of Canterbury, the monk sent by Pope Gregory the Great to evangelise England in AD 597. The first monk to arrive in Ramsgate was Dom Wilfrid Alcock, an English Benedictine who had been formed at Subiaco in Italy. The monks took responsibility for the magnificent Gothic church built by the renowned architect Augustus Welby Pugin, one of the leading figures of the Gothic Revival in England. After Pugin’s death in 1852, the Benedictine community developed beside the church and eventually built a substantial monastery designed by Pugin’s sons, Edward and Peter Paul Pugin. Over the following decades, the community flourished. The monastery became an independent priory in 1881 and was raised to the status of an abbey by Pope Leo XIII in 1896. The monks also founded St Augustine’s Abbey School in Ramsgate in 1865, which educated generations of pupils until its closure in 1995. Ramsgate Abbey became notable for its liturgical life, scholarship, pastoral ministry, and commitment to the Benedictine tradition of prayer, study, and hospitality. By the early twenty-first century, however, maintaining the large Ramsgate property had become increasingly difficult for the smaller monastic community. After careful deliberation, the monks decided to relocate to a more manageable site. At the same time, the Franciscan friars were leaving their friary at Chilworth near Guildford in Surrey. In 2011, the Benedictines moved into the former Chilworth Friary and established their new home as St Augustine’s Abbey, Chilworth, preserving continuity with their Ramsgate foundation. The Chilworth site itself has an important religious history. Originally constructed between 1890 and 1892 as a Franciscan novitiate, it was designed by architect Frederick Walters and financed through the generosity of Mary Anne Alliott and Fr Arthur Wells. The Grade II listed buildings include a church, cloister, and monastic cemetery. The friary served the Franciscans for over a century before the Benedictines arrived. Today, St Augustine’s Abbey, Chilworth, actively and lovingly continues the Roman Catholic Benedictine tradition of contemplative monastic life under the Rule of St Benedict. The monks gather daily for Mass and the Divine Office, much of it sung in Gregorian chant and Latin. The abbey welcomes members of the public throughout the year for daily Mass, Divine Office, and private prayer, and has become known for its hospitality, retreats, guesthouse, public talks, and vocation outreach. The community also produces handcrafted beeswax products, as featured on BBC TV, and maintains strong links with the wider Catholic and local communities. As one of the four UK Benedictine monasteries of the Subiaco Cassinese Benedictine Congregation, the abbey remains both a place of prayer and a living continuation of a monastic tradition stretching back nearly 1,500 years.