Buckfast Abbey

...From that time neither the king nor his minions paused in the pursuit of their nefarious ends...

...In 1525, when John Rede was lord abbot of Buckfast, systematic inquiries were begun in England to the prejudice of those whom the king wished to despoil...

...Some writers are of the opinion that it was founded by Saint Petrock (died 564) in the sixth century...

...The interior is constructed of Bath stone and the fillings in of the vaulting are of red sandstone...

...For ten years no one was allowed to take vows...

...The whole eastern portion, transept, choir, and south aisle are now complete, and a temporary roof shelters the nave while the west front and north aisle are in course of construction...

...Buckfast did not sign and the king's tyranny knew no restraint...

...The first accusation against the abbot of Buckfast was of pasturing his cattle on the king's moors...

...The high altar, which consists of a marble slab eleven feet long by three feet wide, and six inches thick, is supported in front on four marble columns with carved capitals...

...Above all, they insisted upon "the Mass being sung in Latin as before, and the Blessed Sacrament hung over the altar and there worshipped as it was wont to be...

...The woolen industry, that had been introduced by the monks from Flanders centuries ago, is still carried on in the village...

...Sorrow soon came to the young community in the loss of Abbot Natter by shipwreck off the coast of Spain in 1906...

...The old foundations were unearthed and the monks began to rebuild the monastery and cloisters upon them...

...If the abbey had not been unroofed and left to fall into ruins, but had been, like the cathedrals, parish churches, and Westminster Abbey, turned to the use of the Protestant Church as by Law Established, it would be in all probability like them today devoid of the sacramental Presence of Our Lord...

...Many interesting discoveries were made during the excavations, and a museum has been formed in the basement of the Abbot's Tower...

...On the morning of February 25, 1539, the last Mass was said in ancient Buckfast, and the same day the abbey was officially dissolved by Henry VIII and the monks dispersed...

...Every county in the kingdom has its story and its memories of what "it loved long since and lost a while," and lovely Devonshire is especially rich in the old traditions...

...The great old trees, wellkept hedges, good roads, and picturesque bridges look safe and solid and finished...

...Nevertheless, these wondrous structures are still more than memorials of a glorious past, they are symbols of a future hope...

...The abbey is situated on the banks of the River Dart and is encircled by beautifully wooded hills...

...The whole history of Devon makes it fitting that it should see the resurrection of one of the great abbeys that the brigand king destroyed...

...But there are more important souvenirs of the monastic possessions in the houses of the neighboring towns...

...Dom Anscar Vonier who was his companion on the voyage was providentially rescued and on his return home was elected the second lord abbot of Buckfast...

...It was a centre of religion and the arts of civilization, wood-carving, sheep-farming, agriculture, and hospitality...

...All these, built by Catholics for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the glory of God, mutely testify to "the tender grace of a day that is dead...

...The first thing to attract attention is the busy hum of the bees in the lime trees...

...that we will not receive the new service because it is like a Christmas game...

...The history of Buckfast up to the time of the Dissolution is exceedingly interesting...

...In 1534, the Oath of Supremacy was tendered to the nobles and clergy...

...656 BUCKFAST ABBEY By ANNE MANNING GOD was most lavish in His gifts to England, and for hundreds of years Roman and Celt and Briton, Saxon, Norman and Englishman have tamed, developed, and beautified the length and breadth of the country...

...At the crossing of the nave and transept there is a lofty square tower not yet completed but sufficiently high to accommodate a peal of fourteen bells which are rung from a gallery extending round the tower fifty-one feet from the pavement...

...In 1902, Buckfast was restored to its ancient dignity of a Benedictine abbey, and Dom Boniface Natter was elected first of the restored line of abbots...

...A creature of Cranmer and Cromwell named Gabriel Donne was intruded as abbot in 1535 to prepare the way for the final spoliation...

...Small chapels were fitted up in the Abbot's Tower and within its venerable walls many souls found their way home to the "one fold and one Shepherd...

...They walk about and listen to the bells, or the organ, and perhaps hear a sermon or one or other of the Divine Offices, comprehending little, perhaps, but feeling vaguely that this is exactly what 6,000 men of Devon fought and died for nearly four hundred years ago...

...The ancient manors and dependencies of the abbey retain their names...

...The "Abbot's Tower" still stands, the "Abbot's Way" leads across the moor, and the "Monk's Path" still winds by the River Dart...

...The buildings were dismantled, the lead stripped from the roofs, the five church bells, the carvings and everything that could be moved from the abbey and its dependencies were sold, and the property of 36,000 acres, the principal part of the abbey lands, passed into the possession of William Petre, the head of the Royal Commission for the suppression of the religious houses in Devonshire...

...others think that it owed its origin to Cynewulf, king of Wessex...

...The exterior is of local greystone with trimmings of Ham Hill stone...

...The interior of the church is very beautiful, light, and spacious...

...Excavations and researches began at once...

...The first abbot of Buckfast of whom there is any record is Alwinus whose signature appears on several documents in the days of Canute and Edward the Confessor...

...At that time, besides Buckfast "the head of the abbacy that never paid geld," there were eleven manors belonging to the abbey for which Alwinus did pay geld, so it is clear that he must have had several predecessors in the abbacy, whose records have been lost...

...There is nothing more pitiable than the sight of things diverted from their proper end...

...The men of Devon waged an heroic struggle for the Faith, and though they were defeated in the end by the might of a ruthless government, a great deal of Catholic thought and manners survived in the life of the people...

...Under his beneficent rule the community is growing in holiness, wisdom, and numbers...

...There are sixty monks in the community and each seems to be an expert in some separate line...

...it is a charming spot in which to find shelter from the cares of the world, and to listen to the cadences of the abbey bells as they mark the unhurrying hours...

...And over all up and down the country stand the great memorials of mediaeval England— the cathedrals, parish churches, and the ruins of her abbeys...

...His installation took place in 1903, when in the presence of a vast concourse of noted people, the ancient oath of fidelity to the Holy See and the promise to observe the Rule of Saint Benedict, and to administer the goods of the monastery unto the well-being of Holy Church, of the brethren, of the poor and of pilgrims, was heard again in Devon...

...All the gold and silver plate and other treasure of which the abbey was the custodian went at once to replenish the king's coffers, and the work of demolition began...

...So it is not surprising that when the Benedictines returned they found many interesting souvenirs of their predecessors...

...So it came about that on October 28, 1882, Holy Mass was again celebrated and the Divine Office sung amidst the ruins of Buckfast Abbey...

...In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1796, a description was given by a Mr...

...Char-a-bancs, motor cars, and bicycles bring daily, on an average, 150 visitors, who come to wonder at the sight of a few men, independent of union rules, cheerfully building a majestic church...

...It is difficult to remove all trace of an institution that has been a blessing to a place for hundreds of years —a thousand if Baring Gould is correct in his contention that Buckfast Abbey was founded by Saint Petrock...

...However, they see much more than that...

...Everything that remains, arches, walls and windows, testifies to the excellence of the achievements of the monks...

...It contains pieces of carved stone in a great variety of styles, fragments of statuary and stained glass, blue, yellow, and green tiles, copper, gilt, and enamel remnants of shrines, and much else...

...Henry's men did their work thoroughly and when they looked upon the destruction they had wrought, they did not dream that the "Pope's men" would ever come into their own again...

...The monks offered him a good price for it, but he would not sell it...

...In 1922, the church was far enough advanced to be opened, and it was then solemnly blessed...

...It is loveliest of all at dawn, and in the twilight...

...For sixteen years, the Buckfast community was under the government of the abbot of Pierre-qui-vire, but in 1899 it was erected into a separate community with the right to be governed by a resident superior...

...It is the key-note of the place—work and rhythm, peace and happiness...

...The lovely old greystone Gatehouse, with its walls four or five feet thick, its casement windows and turret stairs, is close by the arch under which Edward I passed when he visited Buckfast Abbey...

...Refusal to sign that fatal document meant ruin at least, and martyrdom for many of England's greatest sons, among them the Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Fisher, and the Carthusian monks...

...Even the hearthstone in the kitchen is the same as in the old monastery...

...Unwittingly, the men who stripped the lead from the abbey buildings in the sixteenth century, prepared the way for the return of the monks in the nineteenth...

...A modern mansion was built of some of the materials on the site of the Guesthouse and incorporating the Abbot's Tower...

...The stained-glass windows are very lovely in color, especially those of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the east end of the nave, and the flaming cherubim in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament...

...After compline is said and the evening star appears in the west, the strains of the Memorare are softly pealed forth and fall like a benediction, reaching far into the solitudes of the River Dart and the great silences of the moor...

...When the consequences of the revolt of a licentious king and the pusillanimity of selfish and scheming courtiers have run their course, the English people will not be wholly bereft of their inheritance for they will still have their ancient churches...

...However, it is certain that it existed before King Alfred's time, as it was during that monarch's reign in 871, that the assessment of estates was made, and the testimony of the Domesday Book is that "Bulfestre is the head of the abbacy, it never paid geld...

...Some of the lesser buildings are also to be found...

...Like Rome and the holy places of Palestine, Buckfast is a place to be homesick for...

...The abbots administered the property, which was the gift of kings and nobles, for the good of the people...

...It is the first church in England to be rebuilt on pre-Reformation foundations...

...The abbot's throne is built wholly of carved oak salvaged from a house that once belonged to the abbey...

...A clergyman has a beautiful carved oak altar, decorated with angels and religious symbols, which he uses as a sideboard...

...However, 343 years later the ruins of Buckfast Abbey were bought by a small band of Benedictine monks who had been lately exiled from Pierre-qui-vire by the Third French Republic which, in its turn, was carrying on the time dishonored business of spoliation...

...Its origin is unknown...

...The younger monks were disbanded, so that at the Dissolution there were only ten monks at Buckfast Abbey...

...This mansion, together with several acres of land was, through the generosity of friends, purchased by the monks from Pierre-qui-vire in 1882, and a temporary chapel was built...

...Saint Mary's Abbey of Buckfast is perhaps the oldest in Devonshire...

...The walls appear of the thickness of nine or ten feet, and entirely composed of small stones in layers and a compost of sand and lime which we supposed to have been thrown on these layers hot after the manner anciently used in such large buildings, which incorporated together formed a mass as solid as the native rock...

...These days all roads lead to Buckfast...

...If they are wise they soon understand that all the outward activity is but accessory, and that the great raison d'etre of the place is the Opus Dei— the Mass and the Divine Office, which nothing ever hinders, night or day...

...The style is twelfth-century Gothic...

...The monastery is a hive of industry...

...The visitors walk about and admire the calm, the quiet and the work...

...They educated the children and took care of the sick...

...It has been restored and is now in a shrine above the altar in the Lady Chapel...

...After the Dissolution, the abbey church and monastery changed owners many times, and in the course of time fell into picturesque ruins, of which several drawings are now in the possession of the Benedictines...

...When these were completed, in 1906, the monks, with their own hands, began the erection of the new abbey church...

...In 1549, 10,000 men of Devon and Cornwall marched to Exeter to demand the reestablishment of the abbeys...

...The handsome countryhouses in the midst of broad acres, and the cottages with their green velvety lawns and lovely gardens enclosed by great stone walls covered with rambler roses, clinging vines, and shrubs of various kinds, combine to give a fascinating impression of comfort, peace and security...

...A large portion of the statue of Our Lady of Buckfast was found built into a wall of a house in the neighborhood...

...There is not much to be said for England's Bluebeard, but when the 657 royal ruffian "robbed Peter," at least he rewarded his creatures royally...

...In 1806, the walls were finally leveled and every trace of the foundations was covered up...

...Laskey of the ruins as they were then: "On the north side of the Abbot's Tower," he said, "appear the walls and foundations of this once splendid seat of superstition, the abbey church and remains of its tower all lying in such massy fragments that it is scarcely to be conceived by what power so vast a fabric could be disjointed...

...but we will have our old service of Latin Mass again, and procession in Latin as it was before...