THE BENEDICTINE monks of St Augustine’s Abbey, Ramsgate, Kent, have voted to vacate the monastery in which they have lived for 148 years and to relocate the community. The present abbey, built in 1861, designed by Edward Pugin, the son of Augustus Pugin, can house 40 monks. The community, which numbers 11 monks, is no longer able to meet the abbey’s costs.
Dom Paulinus Greenwood OSB, Abbot of St Augustine’s, said: “We are united in our search for a new site which will enable us to live an authentic, balanced, monastic life of prayer, work, and study, according to the spirit of the Rule of St Benedict.”