Buckfast Abbey

Buckfast Abbey in Devon is one of a small number of active monasteries in Britain today. It was founded in 1018, dedicated to Saint Mary, and run by the Cistercian order from 1147 until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Today it is a Benedictine foundation.

Between 1536, when it was dissolved, and 1882, the abbey lay in ruins. Then a group of Benedictine monks arrived, lived among the ruins, and gradually re-built the abbey much as it had been. The church itself was restored by the monks themselves, in 1907-1908, under Abbot Anscar Vonier. The abbey has close links with Germany, where many of the monks came from. Nowadays the abbey is more or less self-supporting, selling wine, honey and beeswax and making tourists welcome.