 St Augustine's Abbey
After a long and difficult journey from Rome, Augusting finally reached the
southern shores of England in AD597. Travelling with a group of monks,
he had been sent by Pope Gregory to introduce Christianity to the wayward
English. Within a short time, Augustine and his missionaries arrived
in Canterbury, where King Ethelbert of Kent granted land for a monastery
to be built. Following Roman tradition, St Augustine's Abbey was sited
outside the city walls, providing a perfect burial ground for kings
and archbishops
This is the oldest monastic
site in the country, but very little evidence of its grandeur and importance
has survived. Today only a few ruinous walls and foundations exist to
remind us that this was the centre of early Christian education. Over
the centuries, there have been various churches built and many extensions
and restorations made to the original monastery, and the fragmented remains
visible are a combination of these structures. The most prominent, recognisable
feature is the north wall of the nave of the Norman church which still
stands to a good height.
During the early 20th
century excavations, remains of four Saxon church buildings were uncovered
and a crypt of the Anglo-Saxon rotunda, dated c1050, has been left open.
Of the later Norman church, built by Abbot Scolland during the latter
half of the 11th century, the remains of the crypt (beneath
an apsidal chapel) has survived remarkably well and forms the centrepiece
of the site.
As far as the claustral buildings
go, there is virtually nothing above foundation level, and other monastic
buildings such as the infirmary and monks' dormitory lie buried
beneath the playing field. Despite severe destruction after the Dissolution
in 1538, an area around the Great Court was remodelled to provide a royal
palace for King Henry VIII. Evidence suggests this was not much used,
and most of it was eventually destroyed following an earthquake in
1692, but a section of Tudor brick wall heightens the original north wall of
the Norman nave.
With its chequered history
and many periods of alteration, St Augustine's Abbey is a complex site to understand,
the vastness of which may be even more difficult to imagine. To give some
perspective to the overall size of the monastery, it is known that it
took some 20 years to dismantle the buildings after the Dissolution. A
new museum and exhibition hall has recently been added to the site by
English Heritage which provides many interesting facts and finds about
St Augustine and the renewal of the Christian faith in England.
For the visitor interested
in tracing back the landing place of St Augustine, a 19th century replica
of a Celtic cross has been erected on the spot just inland from Pegwell Bay. |
