Although Canterbury is most famous for its grand cathedral, it wasn’t the first large church in the city. St. Augustine’s Abbey is actually outside of the old city walls and was founded around 600 A.D., before the wall was built. It’s only a short walk from the city center, and you can follow the signs. This compound is a fascinating look back at the beginnings of established Christianity in England and is also part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Canterbury.

The Abbey actually consists of several different sets of ruins, which visitors are allowed to traipse through. It is laid out much like a typical cathedral, although in many areas, only the foundations remain. Your (small) admission fee includes an audio tour that takes you through each structure, telling about the evolution and different uses of the abbey. There is also a small museum displaying artifacts found among the ruins. Even if you are not interested in the history of the place, the ruins and the grassy knoll on which they stand are simply gorgeous. Many visitors to Canterbury don’t know about this gem just outside of town, and on the day we visited, we saw maybe three other small groups or individuals. There was certainly plenty of space to explore on our own and to enjoy the serenity of the location. If you have more than a day or so in Canterbury, make sure to add this to your itinerary.

On the southeast fringes of the town, just beyond the remnants of the old city walls, you will find the scant remains of St. Augustine’s Abbey, where the evangelising saint established his abbey.

St. Augustine the Less arrived on English shores in 597 on a mission from Pope Gregory the Great to reconvert the pagan peoples of the British Isles back to Christianity. King Ethelbert of Kent (r.561-617) had promised religious toleration for the Christians when he was married to the Frankish Princess Bertha and became one of Little Augie’s first converts. At that time, Bertha and the other Christians of the Kentish capital of Cantwarabyrig worshipped at a small chapel built on the site of a Roman villa on the outskirts of town, and it was here that King Bert was baptised. The small chapel evolved into the parish church of St. Martins, which is now considered to be one of the earliest surviving Christian sites in the country. This small chapel was hardly sufficient for either Augie’s or Bert’s ambitions, and so the king gifted the saint with land for the establishment of two abbeys. The first was Christ Church Abbey, built on the site of the ancient Roman basilica in the centre of town, and this abbey would evolve into Canterbury Cathedral.

The second was SS Peter & Paul Abbey, built just beyond the city walls, and since Christian tradition forbade burials within the city walls, this Benedictine abbey became an obvious burial site for kings and archbishops. Little Augie himself was buried here in 604 and in 978 Archbishop Dunstan rededicated the abbey to its now sainted founder. After the Norman Conquests in 1070, Archbishop Lanfranc appointed Abbott Scolland, who set about reconstruction of the crumbling abbey, which continued well after his death in 1087, only to be ruined again by earthquake in 1382 before being dissolved in 1538 by King Henry VIII (r.1509-47). A small section was preserved as a royal palace for Anne of Cleves, Big Henry’s fourth queen, to break her journey to London while the rest of the ruins were carted off to Calais for the construction of defenses, and little now remains except an empty field and a superfluous visitors centre.

While there is now little to see, the audio tour included in the small entrance fee to the site makes this a fascinating side trip for those with the time to spare while visiting the city.

St. Augustine's Abbey was founded in 598 AD by...surprise,surprise...St. Augustine. This Abbey is at the very heart of the history of Christianity in England. It has actually been a monastic site for nearly a thousand years. The admission price of US$3.75 includes an interesting interactive tour of the ruins. There is a museum and information center and this houses fascinating exhibits discovered during earlier excavations. There is also a well-stocked shop if you want to get a momento of your visit to Canterbury.

This abbey, also founded by the busy Augustine along with the cathedral, suffered badly in the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1540s. The site is now ruined, but fascinating still. There are the ruins of both Saxon and Norman churches, and a palace built by Henry VII after the dissolution to demonstrate his power and new-found property rights over the former church properties. The palace was built for his marriage to Anne of Cleves, the bride he married sight unseen on the basis of a painting. The art turned out to be somewhat more impressive than the real thing, and this marriage, Henry's fourth, ended in divorce before it has properly begun. The palace suffered along with the nuptials, and was rented out for several centuries. There's a very interesting museum on-site which explains the history of the buildings, and displays various objects from them.

It costs £2 to enter the site, £1.50 for students and OAPs, and £1 for children.