The Downsdide Monastery is easily seen from here, just to the left of the Abbey tower.
Downside Abbey is the senior Benedictine monastery of the English Benedictine Congregation. Originally founded in Douai, in 1606, the community of St Gregory the Great settled at Downside in 1814.
Downside Abbey Church, one of only three Minor Basilicas in England, has been designated by English Heritage as a grade I listed building. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner described the Abbey as “the most splendid demonstration of the renaissance of Roman Catholicism in England”.
The Monks left the monastery in March 2022 and now reside at Buckfast Abbey in Devon.