Aylesford Priory

Major pilgrimage routes visit Aylesford’s friars, including the famous Pilgrims Way to Canterbury, as well as the Justus Way to Rochester Cathedral and the Augustine Camino

Aylesford Priory exists in a category almost of its own among British holy places. It contains the shrine of an English saint, but feels like a pilgrimage centre in southern Europe.

On the weekday I visited, it was full of noisy children and contemplative pensioners, happily oblivious to each other in the July sunshine.

Highlights

• Shrine of St Simon Stock
• Revived Carmelite friary

St Simon Stock is shared by Catholic and Anglican tradition. He is one of our native saints and died in 1265, long before the Reformation.

Major pilgrimage routes visit Aylesford’s friars, including the famous Pilgrims Way to Canterbury, as well as the Justus Way to Rochester Cathedral and the Augustine Camino.

Aylesford is perhaps the country’s best example of a functioning saint’s shrine. If you want to experience how most Christians regard relics, this is a good starting point. This shrine chapel was built in the 1950s, but its stone walls and cloistered approach feel authentically ancient. And in a sense they are.

St Simon Stock served as a prior in this very monastery during the 13th century. Although little historical detail is know of St Simon’s life, some later histories claim that he was actually born in Aylesford too. More recently still, some modern historians have even cast doubt on whether he ever existed, although the monastery itself is real enough. In later life tradition relates that he became leader of the Carmelites, and travelled widely to support their work.

The Aylesford monastery was of course closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but reopened by a Carmelite community of monks in 1949. They restored what they could of the surviving buildings and added the shrine chapel and other pilgrimage buildings. Nowadays it is a thriving centre of spiritual activity, offering retreat and conference facilities. At its heart are prayer and pilgrimage, which find focus in the central shrine chapel of St Simon Stock.

The chapel is at the end of a wide courtyard, which has been designed for open-air worship.

A large statue of the Blessed Virgin faces into the courtyard, and to the left a doorway leads into St Simon’s chapel. His relics are kept in a shrine behind the main altar, with the saint’s skull on display in an elaborate reliquary.

You need to hold down a button to illuminate the saint’s skull – an arrangement which caught the imagination of a group of schoolchildren when I visited. This is the only place I’ve viewed a relic under a sort of strobe lighting effect.

St Simon’s skull was brought to Aylesford in 1951 from Bordeaux, where it had lain since his death in France in 1265 – on 16 May, his saint’s day. St Simon is patron saint of Bordeaux, and most of his holy body remains in its cathedral.

This chapel and the other pilgrimage buildings contain some outstanding works of devotional art. Look in St Joseph’s Chapel for some of the best examples. There are several works by Adam Kossowski, a Polish refugee from the second world war who became a famous ceramic artist in Britain. A resident artist works in the monastery to this day. The priory is often called ‘The Friars’, a name that appears on maps and road signs. It is open every day to any visitor.

The mystery of the brown scapular St Simon Stock might not be a household name but he is a major influence on many Christians’ lives today. According to a late 14th-century tradition, he once received a vision of the Blessed Virgin, in which she told him that anyone wearing a Carmelite monk’s habit when they died would be saved. These clothes are known as the Brown Scapular, a sort of apron- like cloak that hangs over the shoulders (scapula being Latin for shoulder). From the late 16th century onwards, lay people as well as monks began wearing the scapular.

To this day many Catholics wear a cut-down version of the habit under their clothing. This looks a bit like a necklace with small cloth squares front and back. Nowadays the Catholic church is rather circumspect about claims for the scapular’s efficacy. As they say, it can help the wearer stay alert to the requirements for salvation, rather than offering salvation itself.

Directions

Aylesford Priory, The Friars, Aylesford ME20 7BX

www.thefriars.org.uk

W3W: vowel.entrust.began

GPS: 51:3031N 0.4723E

Aylesford railway station 1.8km

There are signs to The Friars from Junction 6 of the M20. They take you on a 4-mile detour in order to deter traffic from passing through Aylesford’s narrow High Street. A satnav device might well take you another way. Building a footbridge over the River Medway to connect

Aylesford railway station to the monastery would be a more logical answer to transport problems.

They are just 300m apart, but nearly 2km on foot along the road. If you wish to organise a group visit or arrange accommodation, contact the monastery first via the website or telephone: 01622 717272.