- TURY.CLUB
- Tourist Objects
- Great Britain
- Canterbury
- Abbey of St. Augustine
The Benedictine Abbey of St. Augustine is located in Great Britain, in the county of Kent, in the city of Canterbury. The abbey was founded in 598 by St. Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, who arrived in Kent in 597 on behalf of Pope Gregory the Great to spread Christian teaching among the Anglo-Saxons. Initially, the monastery was named after Saints Peter and Paul, and only in 978 was it renamed in honor of its founder. In the 10th century, under Archbishop Dunstan, the wooden buildings of the monastery were replaced with stone ones, and in the 11th century, after the Norman conquest of England, they were rebuilt in the Romanesque style. In the 13th century, a cloister and several buildings in the Gothic style were built on the territory of the abbey. During its heyday, St. Augustine's Abbey was a major center of religious education. A missionary school, a large library and a scriptorium functioned under him, in which the monks worked hard, rewriting ancient manuscripts and creating new ones. In addition, throughout its history, the abbey served as the burial place of the Archbishops of Canterbury and the kings of Kent. In 1539, during the Reformation, by order of the English king Henry VIII, most monasteries and churches were closed, and the Abbey of St. Augustine did not escape this fate - all its property was confiscated in favor of the state, some of the buildings were dismantled, and others were rebuilt into residential premises , granted after the divorce by Henry VIII to his fourth wife, Queen Anne of Cleves. Under Elizabeth I, the buildings of the former monastery began to be rented out to English nobles. Time and frequent changes of owners led to the fact that the buildings began to deteriorate and gradually collapse. In 1804, part of the area with surviving buildings was divided into small plots, which were sold to private individuals, and the central courtyard was converted into a golf course. In 1844, the ruins of the Abbey of St. Augustine were visited by the famous English politician, writer and philanthropist Alexander Beresford Hope, who acquired a plot of land with the aim of restoring the surviving buildings of the abbey and creating a college on its territory to train missionaries going to the British colonies. During World War II, due to massive bombing, its buildings were destroyed and the college was closed. The surviving buildings of St. Augustine's Abbey were transferred in 1976 to one of the oldest educational institutions in England - The King's School - for use as a boarding school and to house a library. In front of the main gate to the abbey, a large square was laid out and statues of King Ethelbert I and his wife Bertha of Kent (St. Bertha) - the first Anglo-Saxon monarchs to convert to Christianity - were installed. In 1988, the ruins of St. Augustine's Abbey were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
