Ampleforth Abbey

Ampleforth Abbey stands a mile east of Ampleforth village in North Yorkshire. It is a monastery of Benedictine monks, part of the English Benedictine Congregation. The community traces its roots to Westminster Abbey before the Reformation, through Sigebert Buckley who survived the dissolution. Today the abbey has forty-one monks and sometimes fifty nuns in its organisation. The monks also serve parishes across four dioceses and once ran St Benet’s Hall in Oxford. A daughter house was founded in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1955. The abbey is worth visiting for its long history and fine architecture. The present church, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, was begun in 1924 and consecrated in 1961. It replaced an earlier church of the 1850s demolished in 1957. The building is a Grade I listed structure with a cruciform plan, a tower over the crossing and a crypt beneath containing twenty-five chapels. Its stained glass includes work by Patrick Reyntiens and Herbert Hendrie, and the woodwork is by Robert Thompson. The abbey church remains a working place of worship and a notable example of modern Catholic architecture. Visitors find a quiet monastic setting with the abbey church as the centrepiece. The limestone building has roofs of different materials and a tower with buttresses and bell openings. Inside, side chapels flank the nave and retrochoir while the crypt offers further spaces for prayer. The abbey grounds lie in gentle North Yorkshire countryside a short walk from Ampleforth village. The place combines spiritual tradition with architectural quality and remains a place for reflection.