St Augustine's Abbey
A few weeks ago it was the Canterbury Medieval Pageant which we'd always seen advertised after the fact so never got to go. As it was, this time around Lauren somehow managed to get wind of the event 2 days before so we decided to give it a go during the very rainy Saturday afternoon.
By the time Ren finished work we were just in time for the last guided tour at St Augustine's Abbey. This Abbey had always been on our radar as nearby, but we had no idea how big it actually was nor how close. As locals (or localish, we're 20 minutes away), we'd driven past this site a million times and never even realised it was there, so when the opportunity finally arose to engage us we took it.
Sadly, due to the weather and the inclusion of disrespectful people we were forced to abandon the tour guide and go off on our own. Lauren is partially deaf so hearing people especially in a large crowd is always a challenge and what with the rain making things difficult, people having conversations over the guide just made it impossible. So we went off and explored historyless as usual, after all: why break a habit.
St Augustine's Abbey, founded as the Monastery of Ss Peter & Paul, was a Benedictine monastery until the Big Bully King (Henry VIII) tore it down just like all the others featured on this blog. The difference with St Augustine's was that some of the abbey remained in order to make royal housing for visits to Canterbury. This was known as the palace and was on occasion used by the monarch, up to and including the reign of Elizabeth I. The palace was then loaned to various noblemen including the Woottons' who were the last to reside in the building.
The monastery changed names following the death of its founder, Augustine, who was sent to England in order to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. He met with King Ethelbert who was Pagan, but his wife Bertha was Christian and so he agreed for the abbey to be built and lavished it in gifts with the request it be grand as he foresaw kings and abbots alike being buried here.
It was Dunstan, interestingly an abbot of Glastonbury Abbey before going on to be Archbishop of Canterbury, who converted St Augustine's to Catholicism when he influenced a change to the Benedictine rule. Alterations were made to the building and the church was rebuilt as well as the abbey itself being known by the name of its founder from this point on.
When the Danes invaded they enriched St Augustine's, pouring gifts and artefacts including the remains of St Mildred upon the abbey. It became a site of pilgrimage as well as the main holy building of Kent as it was previously. A second invasion, this time during the Norman Conquest, saw the abbey survive again, although this time alterations were made in order to erase the Anglo-Saxon-ness from the abbey and instead replace these buildings with typical Norman Benedictine buildings.
St Augustine's just about survived a third invasion in the form of WWII. German bombs had caused quite a lot of destruction to the gatehouse to the point it had to be rebuilt. Of course the abbey itself was already in ruins at this point.
Fyndon's gate (the one which got rebuilt due to the bombs) faces Lady Wootton's green which was named after the widow of Edward, Lord Wootton of Marley who lived here in the palace until her death. In the square named after here there is two statues, one of King Ethelbert and one of Queen Bertha. We think this is a lovely callback to history and again something we never knew was here considering we've been coming to Canterbury our entire lives. An interesting connection is that Ren's maternal family name is Wootton.
The palace itself no longer exists as the property passed to Sir Edward Hales following Lady Wootton's death and he dismantled it in order to build Hales Place. All that remains here is the ruins of the abbey and the gatehouse. The latter of which became the entrance to a college which ceased operations due to the damage caused by the blitz, but went on to be repurposed as accommodation for the King's school which they still are today.
We must admit that the tone here during the pouring rain was quite sombre, but achingly beautiful. You have to watch your step however as there are graves littered everywhere as the burials took place in different parts of the abbey depending on status. As you enter the ruins you've got various abbots and then as you go off to the left under the sheltered part there are archbishops and then as you head right toward the crypt there are the kings. Would we say it's haunted? Well it certainly retains the echos of its past. There are stone doorways which lead nowhere and remnants of the abbey's many lives scattered about the surrounding greenery. It is nice to see that the graves here have been well kept however, on previous visits to other abbeys we have unknowingly stumbled over various burials or noticed the odd stone commemorating the dead. A conscious effort was made here to not only identify who lays beneath the earth at various spaces but also to maintain and make it obvious where they lay. Different coloured gravel is used to highlight certain graves where a marker is otherwise not used, some even have both.
Notable burials here include:
Ethelbert of Kent, the King of Kent
Eadbald of Kent, King of Kent and son of Ethelbert
Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury
Emma of Austrasia, consort of Eadbald (queen)
Justus, first Bishop of Rochester and 4th Archbishop of Canterbury
Juliana Leybourne, Countess of Huntingdon
Mellitus, 3rd Archbishop of Canterbury, saint, 1st Bishop of London
Of course these are just a handful of the dead laid to rest here, we witnessed a fair few graves and the above do not mention the abbots laid below.
We didn't see any ghosts, but we got the same feeling of being watched that we did back at Byland Abbey when we actually experienced a sighting. That was the experience that kickstarted the ghost count and subsequently the rating on if a place is haunted. Strangely, there are no tales of woe, various coloured ladies who signify death upon sight, or brutal battles leaving behind a spooky story here. We've done a bit of research and cant find any mention of the usual grey lady or other ghostly sighting at this site. Looking at the ruins in person you'd have thought that they'd have inspired something of the sort, they are very haunting especially in the rain and the added graves made obvious helps to saturate the site with an air of ghostly valour. Not to mention the skeleton in the museum, the whole thing adds to the atmosphere of the macabre. But no, this site isn't morbid or scary at all, just merely a remnant of Canterbury's importance and how it was a base for Anglo-Saxon religion.
Of course this adds to Ren's theory that if King Arthur existed he would have likely been buried either in Canterbury or nearby, but this abbey in particular has no connection that we're aware of other than the fact it was involved with Dunstan who hailed from the supposed burial place of the mythical king.
Would we go back? Of course! Local history to us is the most intriguing and there is plenty more here to discover. We had to cut our exploration short as there were other opportunities at stake for rare visits to history during the pageant, but we fully intend to go back and give it another more focused look. We find that we focus so much on learning about other places that we tend to neglect the history beneath our very feet. We're rectifying this, so stay posted over the next few weeks as we begin to uncover the gruesome and occasionally nice history of our home county of Kent.
The giftshop, entrance, and museum were all rolled into one and the shop was reduced into a little corner of booze, books, child tatt, and the odd souvenir. Lauren got her wooden keyring so was happy and that's all we really needed.
DISCLAIMER: Now for the official bit. This blog does not receive any paid promotions from the places mentioned above. We have not been approached to promote or act as spokespersons for any attraction mentioned within this post and this is simply a post intended to act as a day in the life of a couple on a cute date. All photos included are taken by ourselves and as such the rights for these images our ours, no links, brands, or companies mentioned otherwise belong or are associated with Phantom Adventures UK. We are responsible only for this blog. Opinions are our own and not influenced by any third party source..
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