English Heritage

Founded in AD 598 by St Augustine himself, this once-great abbey proclaims the rebirth of Christianity in southern England. It’s a must-see for anyone visiting the Canterbury World Heritage Site.

Augustine, a missionary from Rome, baptised the pagan King Ethelbert of Kent, the most powerful Anglo-Saxon monarch and the first to convert to Christianity.

To mark his conversion, Ethelbert gave Augustine land to build this very first monastery in Anglo-Saxon England. The site museum traces how the Saxon monastery was magnificently rebuilt by the Normans before becoming a Tudor royal palace. You can take a personal virtual reality tour of the abbey as it looked in about 1500.