A Visitor’s Guide to Buckfast Abbey

This fascinating souvenir guide to Buckfast Abbey – a Benedictine monastery dramatically situated on the edge of Dartmoor – focuses on the history of the building and the monastic community within, and provides a tour of the church and gardens. The Abbey welcomes around 500,000 visitors a year, who are drawn by its tranquility and inspirational story. Founded in 1018, the first abbey grew throughout the Middle Ages until its closure in 1539 by King Henry VIII, who allowed the building to fall into ruin. In 1882 a group of Benedictine monks settled at Buckfast and set about rebuilding the Abbey. With a team of only six monks, it took 30 years to build. Today it is the only English medieval monastery to have been restored and used again for its original purpose.