Buckfast Abbey

Buckfast Abbey in Buckfastleigh, place in the English county of Devon, is a Benedictine monastery and one of the few active monasteries in Britain.

History

The monastery was founded in 1018 by Lord Aylward. In 1136 it included a congregation with the monastery Savigny and then belonged to the Cistercian Order: From 1147 to 1539 the monastery was a Cistercian abbey. Church and buildings were destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under the reign of King Henry VIII, and more than 300 years, existed from the Abbey is in ruins. 1882, she was then hired by exiled from France Benedictines of St. Augustines Priory in Ramsgate and later purchased for £ 4,700.

The first abbot, Boniface Natter, died in 1906 in a shipwreck. His successor Anscar Vonier took the long-planned reconstruction of the abbey in attack. In 1907 the construction of the convent church on the foundations of the previous building, and in 1937 the church building was finally completed in the Norman and early Gothic style. Altar and baptismal font of the church are copies of the German domes.

Economic Situation

The Abbey contributes economically self: sources of income are vegetable growing, bee-keeping, as well as pig and cattle breeding. In their monastery the monks shop selling honey and beeswax. However, is in particularly high demand of Buckfast tonic wine, to make the monks since 1890, according to an old French recipe.

The other pillar of the economic existence of the abbey consists of a conference and seminar center including guest house and restaurant.