Ampleforth Abbey

Ampleforth Abbey, North Yorkshire, is a monastery of Benedictine Monks in the English Benedictine Congregation. It claims descent from the pre-Reformation community at Westminster Abbey through the last surviving monk from Westminster Sigebert Buckley. The current Abbot is Fr. Cuthbert Madden.

History

The Abbey was founded in a house given to Father Anselm Bolton by Lady Anne Fairfax. This house was taken over by Dr. Brewer, President of the Congregation, 30 July, 1802. The community, since leaving Dieulouard in Lorraine, where its members had joined with Spanish and Cassinese Benedictines to form the monastery of St. Lawrence, had been successively at Acton Burnell, Tranmere, Scholes, Vernon Hall, and Parbold Hall, under its superior Dr. Marsh.

On its migration to Ampleforth Lodge, Dr. Marsh remained at Parbold and Father Appleton was elected the first prior of the new monastery. Shortly afterwards Parbold was broken up and the boys of the school there transferred to Ampleforth. The priory was erected into an abbey, in 1890, by the Bull "Diuquidem". and has an important and flourishing college attached to it. John Cuthbert Hedley, Bishop of Newport, was an alumnus, as well a superior of Ampleforth, Abbot Smith. The monastery was finished in 1897. [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/The_Abbey_of_Ampleforth]

Ampleforth College

The monastery set up a school at Ampleforth in 1802. It is now the co-educational independent boarding school Ampleforth College, with around 600 students.

Parishes

In addition to the work at Ampleforth, some of the monks are sent as parish priests to parishes, mostly in Lancashire.

St Benet's Hall, Oxford

Ampleforth has a Permanent Private Hall at Oxford, primarily for the purpose of training priests and religious, but which also accepts some undergraduate students.

aint Louis

Ampleforth set up a sister priory at St Louis, Missouri in 1955. The priory gained independence in 1973 and became a monastery in its own right in 1989.

Zimbabwe

In 1996, Ampleforth set up the community of "Christ the Word" in Zimbabwe.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.ampleforth.org.uk/abbey/index.html Ampleforth Abbey website]