St. Augustine's Abbey by Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875). 1860-61, with an addition in 1871. East wing added by Peter Paul Pugin in 1904, and library added in 1926 probably by Charles Winmill. Cuthbert Pugin also worked on the building (see Blaker, site no. 27). Knapped flint with narrow stone bandings and stone dressings, to match St Augustine's Church on the other side of the road. The gables over the dormers also echo those of St Edward's Presbytery opposite, designed by A. W. N. Pugin. The Abbey has banded tiled roofs as well, and a wonderful flint wall with brick banding and buttresses, with a little gabled gateway on St Augustine's Road.
Gabled gateway on St Augustine's Road. [Click on thumbnail for larger image.]
Both building and wall are Grade II listed, and the listing text describes the younger Pugins' work as all "reasonably consistent Victorian 'Reformed Gothic' style." Of less interest to architectural historians than their father's buildings opposite, the Abbey is nevertheless an impressive sight, with its massive "T-shaped residential block," and its "jittery and jagged" details (Newman 425). It was the "first Benedictine monastry to be built in England since the Reformation" ("St Augustine's Abbey").
Related Material
References
Blaker, Catriona. The Pugins: A Ramsgate Town Trail. 2nd ed. The Pugin Society, 2009.
"The History of St Augustine's Abbey and Monastery." Abbey site. Web. 6 Dec. 2020.
Newman, John. North East and East Kent (Pevsner Architectural Guides: The Buildings of England). 3rd ed. London: Penguin, 1983.
"St Augustine's Abbey and Perimeter Wall." British Listed Buildings site. Web. 6 Dec. 2010.
Last modified 6 December 2010