This article is taken from the May 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
I stared dumbfounded at the Carthusian monk, bent to sketch an absolution over the grizzled axe-man by whom he was, moments later, to be strangled, castrated and disemboweled, in preparation for his limbs and head to be severed from his body. All around, his brothers in religion were rapt in the agonies of this hideous torture, their mouths gaping in an eternal, silent howl.
This silence is rarely broken within these walls, except for prayers or the bells which call the monks to chapel. I was in the Chapter House of St Hugh’s Charterhouse, West Sussex. Its painted panorama is a gory 19th century mural depicting the martyrdom of the Carthusian brotherhood, and it is here that the monks meet regularly to discuss the business of the community.
But discussion hardly describes the solemnity of the proceedings. My guide, Brother Edward, explained, “When a monk wants anything he must lay prostrate in the middle of the room until the Prior bids him, saying, ‘What do you ask for, Brother?’ The answer is ‘Mercy’, the answer is always mercy. The monk goes on to ask for prayer for a departed soul, or for grace on the anniversary of life profession and the prior replies, ‘The community will pray for you.’ And that increases your isolation. That is why we are here.”
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Br Edward is part of a community of 19 monks, lay and ordained, who have dedicated their lives to prayer and contemplation of the divine in this monastery. Of the five monk-priests, each has a chapel in which he says a daily mass, alone, with no server or congregation. Two more are coming to join them this year from South Africa. When Edward joined, there were 24 monks from 19 different countries.
Edward is a former agnostic and professor of philosophy from America. At the age of 43, in the middle of a lecture, he stopped in his tracks and found himself saying, “Oh my God, I believe in God.” He then became a Trappist monk in New York and, after six years, moved to St Hugh’s in 2009 where he took life vows and where he has been ever since. His salt and pepper beard is down to his chest. His neat steel-rimmed round spectacles complete the look — doubtless something he has barely contemplated; there is no mirror in a Carthusian cell.
The great cloister covers one square mile, and the monks usually use bicycles to get around it. As we wandered along it, we passed an open door onto the vast orchard within. Blocking my view was a mound of earth topped by a rudimentary cross of apple tree branches. Br Edward stopped and led me into the graveyard. Carthusians, unlike other monks, lie in unmarked graves with their habit doubling as both shroud and coffin. Yesterday they had buried one of their number, Dom Carlo, and I was to see his cell.
We left the cloister through a small door, walking along a short corridor, at the end of which was a pile of timber for the log-burners which sit beside their beds. We went up the stairs to the Ave Room, where a fireplace (not working) acts as a throne for a statue of the mother of God holding the Christ Child. Here the monk performed genuflections and prayers before going into his cell proper.
In one corner of the cell was a desk, where the monk practises lectio divina. Along the opposite wall was the stove and single bed, built into a surround like a bunk bed with no upper. At its head was a single choir stall and a prie-dieu. There was a candle for light and a sink in a cupboard for washing. This was the room in which Dom Carlo concerned himself supremely, perhaps solely, with the practice of the presence of God for over 40 years.
Later in the library I saw a copy of The Cloud of Unknowing from the 14th century. The author’s name was listed only as “A Carthusian monk”, and this is the case with all their work. Their graves are unmarked, their intellectual output unattributed; they have no private possessions. Even a monk’s glasses are marked, “for the use of” not “belonging to”.
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Afterwards I was led through the baffling maze of small cloisters and into the world. Until recently I have, I must confess, been something of a monastery snob. I have visited dozens of monastic communities in France, Italy, Spain and the Holy Land, but always spurned their less glamorous brethren on my home turf.
My change of heart came about whilst re-reading William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain. His journey in the 1990s from Mount Athos to Mount Sinai is a gut-wrenching account of the choking out of Christianity from its homelands. It dawned on me that this was a story being told in England, albeit in much less dramatic fashion, and I decided that I would set off and visit these places whilst I could.
First, I tried to stay at Alton Abbey, an Anglican foundation in Hampshire. It’s a place with a distinguished history as a monastery and a hospital for distressed and elderly seamen. I emailed the guest master and eagerly awaited the reply. Benedictine houses are especially hospitable. It is written into their DNA, in the 53rd chapter of The Rule. But the guest master never replied; instead I heard from the prior himself.
He wrote to apologise and inform me that I would not be able to stay with them as the Abbey was closing, the monks dispersed. It is now up for sale on Carter Jonas. After almost 130 years of continuous prayer and service, Alton Abbey is closed. No invasion. No occupation. Just the attrition of capitalism and indifference to our Christian culture eroding monastic vocations.
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And so to St Augustine’s Abbey, Chilworth, a little piece of heaven in the home counties. It is a gothic revival Franciscan fantasy with the warmth of a Jacobean country house. The yellow stone is stippled with grey, like the belly of a great sleeping carp. It is the romantic vision of a bijou monastery personified.
The abbey church is watched over by the crucified Christ, pinioned on a regal cross in front of the organ, as majestic as any 17th century French king, his mother and St John as courtiers by his side. Beneath him, a nightclub VIP rope separates the secular worshipper from the chancel quire beyond, where only the religious can approach. They pray there for us from vigil to compline. Seven offices, plus mass, every day without fail.
My host, Dom Andrew, is the guest master at St Augustine’s, a duty which he combines with those of bursar and novice master. Arriving when I did meant that I was in time to throw my bag in my guest room and go down to chapel for sext (not something ghastly; it is the fifth of the canonical hours). Dom Andrew had laid out my books for the Office. He passed over the rope, like an improbable bouncer, and the chanting began.
The language was modern but not jarring. Heaven in ordinary. Except there really is nothing ordinary about this place: no signal, no wifi, no sirens or clamour, no flat whites. It’s hard to say what happens when one sits listening to monks singing in choir — Augustine said “when one sings, one prays twice”. All I know is that my soul felt lighter, and my eyes blurred with tears.
As sext ended, the monks shuffled off and Dom Andrew reappeared though another door. He ushered us through, and we found ourselves in the compact cloister beyond. The garden within was strewn with potted plants, and a hose snaked lazily across the gravel.
The monks here eat together in silence — the soundtrack to lunch was the symphony of clanging cutlery and gentle munching. Every now and then a mighty crash would come from the kitchen, but no one seemed remotely bothered by this apocalyptic portent. All was perfect peace and tranquillity.
The atmosphere became suddenly charged — a whisper broke out amongst the monks nearest the kitchen, and spread along the benches. Barely audible at first, it grew steadily: “chips”, “Chips”, “CHIPS”. Rejoice!
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On my final morning I breakfasted with Dom Andrew in the guest wing. He gave me the last ever printed Benedictine Yearbook (2021 — it moved online during Covid) and spoke frankly about the frustrations of monastic life. His competency has landed him several jobs in the community. As bursar, he has to make ethical investments whilst also making the money to keep the community afloat. As novice master, he has to train the new members and they can take some adjustment.
Do they have a problem with vocations? Dom Andrew shrugged. The two they have come from South American countries (none from Europe), and often their literacy and language is poor. “Give people a roof over their head and food in their stomach and you will always get vocations, that’s what my novice master told me in Rome,” he said.
At Worth Abbey, I found a different story. The impressive gates of Worth School are not for the pilgrim — who must continue on a side road to the modern abbey, which sits like a crashed spaceship atop the South Downs. It is still the school chapel, but the monks are no longer teachers or chaplains. The two institutions live side by side, like a divorced couple who decide to live in neighbouring houses for the sake of the kids.
After midday prayer, I was led back to the refectory, a room with ceiling tiles, worn carpet and white walls. The abbot read to us from an improving text as we ate. The book was Tom Holland’s Dominion, and the monks clearly relished this romp through the classics. The Abbot sounded as though he could read audiobooks for a living and retained that delicious inflection, pronouncing the “h” in “which”, “whom”, “why”, etc.
In the calefactory after lunch the conversation was inspired by Dominion. One monk, a former classicist, said meekly, “I was so busy at school and university just learning to do the technical stuff that on returning to the Iliad I am appalled by the gratuitous glorification of violence.” “So you returned to the Old Testament, did you?” chuckled another.
No one has been interested in joining this community in 15 years but, now, suddenly, two have come along. One is a 36-year-old postulant, on a break before committing to the novitiate. The other is the aspirant Robin, 43, who spoke to me about his experience. He was staying there for a month in the cloister as a trial.
Robin saw the TV programme The Monastery, set in Worth, almost 20 years ago. At the time he was an agnostic and was watching it with his girlfriend. “It just hit me; that’s what I’m going to do.” He then taught English in Japan for 13 years before staying in various monasteries as part of his discernment.
He spoke evenly about what had brought him to monasticism. “The same thing [the consumerist, libertine culture] which drove people away from the monastic life is driving them back to it. The besieging of social media and the news cycle, it’s relentless. This life gives me the freedom to say ‘no’ to it all. Life without the spirit is unsatisfying.” He was going to wait until he was 50, but realised that he just couldn’t wait any more. “I need to be here,” he added. He was also attracted by the strict life at St Hugh’s and wants to visit but was a little apprehensive.
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At St Michael’s Farnborough, a small community where all the worship is in Latin, things were looking up, too. The abbot takes on many roles, but out of choice and with a rare energy. I asked him about the farmland adjacent to the monastery, and he told me that the monks farm it. He delivers the lambs himself.
His confidence in the vocation of monasteries in a changing world was inspirational, and it seems to be catching; he told me that the average age of his monks is 35, the lowest in the Province of England (which deliciously includes North America). Here at meals the monks are treated to Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel, read by a novice who looked barely old enough to be legally able to order a pint. It is remarkable that these young men are stepping away from the trappings of 21st century life in order to search for something deeper.
Other monasteries up and down these isles aren’t necessarily as buoyant, but each has its own peculiar uniqueness. To visit one, to sit in the chapels or walk in the gardens, is to step out of a world which is often chaotic and confused into one of meaning and calm.
Though numbers nationally have been dwindling in recent years, there are signs of renewal. Perhaps, as the young turn back to religion, there might be a renewed exploration of monasticism too. It seems that traditional communities are holding together. They offer stability and solace in a mad world. Apparently the Carthusian motto holds true: Stat crux dum volvitur orbis — the cross is steady as the world turns.
