I've just been on a mini-retreat to St Mary's Abbey at West Malling in Kent, at the start of Holy Week 2006. It was kindly suggested by my Rector, who nevertheless had never been there himself. Still, it all worked out well enough!
The Abbey was founded by Bishop Gundulf of Rochester in 1090; it was never very large, and never housed more than about 30 Benedictine nuns, and went through unhappy times over the centuries when the Sisters were clearly not behaving in a terribly nunly fashion! The Abbey was suppressed in 1538 and the 13 nuns driven out. The buildings passed through a variety of owners before the Akers family bought the estate in 1849. The Akerses were a devout Anglo-Catholic family who felt increasingly uneasy at owning property which had once belonged to the Church. They restored the old Pilgrim's Chapel and invited several Anglican Sisterhoods to use the buildings. In 1893 the Community of SS Mary & Scholastica took over the site and it became a religious house for the first time in 350 years. The Sisters joined the Roman Catholic church in 1911 and left, but in 1916 another Anglican Sisterhood arrived and have remained there ever since.
Malling Abbey houses about 22 sisters at the moment and they even have a novice, which is encouraging! They are largely an enclosed order whose work is prayer, spiritual writing, looking after the Abbey and the two thousand-or-so guests who stay in it every year to take part in the life of contemplation for a short while.
The site contains both modern buildings and the remaining structures of the medieval Abbey, including the Gatehouse, the Guest House part of which dates back to about 1400, and the massive west tower of the old Abbey Church, which dominates the area open to the public. A stream rising at St Leonard's Well south of the town runs through the grounds.
I found the worship calming, the environment a great help to reflection, and the food tasty and plentiful! I wanted to renew my ordination vows while there (having missed the Chrism Mass at Guildford, when it should have happened, because it was moved to Monday to avoid clashing with Her Maj dishing out the Maundy money there on Thursday), and the Mother Abbess very kindly heard them for me!
There's no charge for staying at the Abbey as the Sisters regard looking after guests as part of their duty of hospitality. But donations are always welcome.
