The enduring ruins of St Augustine's Abbey

St Augustine's Abbey was founded in 598. Its original name was the Monastery of Ss Peter and Paul, but it was later renamed St Augustine's after its founder, Augustine of Canterbury. King Æthelberht of Kent, who was married to a Christian woman named Bertha, provided gifts and land for the foundation. While the initial monastic buildings were likely wooden, a church of solid masonry was completed and consecrated in 613. In 624, Eadbald, son and successor of Æthelberht, founded a second church dedicated to Saint Mary nearby.

The abbey functioned as a monastery until its dissolution in 1538 during the English Reformation. This ended over 940 years of monastic presence. By then, the site had undergone significant transformations, including being reconstructed as a Norman Benedictine monastery following the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. By 1100, all original buildings had disappeared under a Romanesque edifice.

There was further rebuilding at St Augustine's Abbey following the great fire in 1168. The fire's destruction accounts for the paucity of historical records for the preceding period. Abbot Fyndon rebuilt the abbey gatehouse from 1301 to 1309. The chamber above the entrance of Fyndon Gate was the state bed-chamber of the monastery. Kings and queens even stayed there. Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria slept in the state bed-chamber of Fyndon Gate in 1625. In 1660, Charles II and his brothers stayed in Fyndon Gate on their way to London. Fyndon’s gate suffered damage during the Second World War and had to be rebuilt.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons