Caldey Abbey, Caldey Island / Ynys Byr

A journey over the sea to this Celtic monastery, revived in modern times, reveals a place of retreat and pilgrimage alike

Highlights

• Island monastery of Celtic saints
• Revived Cistercian abbey

Caldey Island is home to a particularly devout Catholic monastery: contemplative, nearly always silent, and physically detached from the mainland world. Not entirely cut off, however, given recent scrutiny over a sex abuse scandal involving one of the monks, who died in 1992. It is people who desecrate or sanctify any holy place, lessons that leave deep marks on the land.

There are three main sites on the island: this modern Cistercian monastery, dating from the 20th century, a 12th-century parish church next door, and a mostly derelict Norman monastery 400m uphill. There was a Celtic monastery here too, vestiges of which can be seen at the Norman site.

It is possible to stand or sit in a balcony at the back of the monastic church, to share silently in the community’s regular acts of worship. I attended the 12:15pm prayers. The monks were as focused as if it were the first service of the week, though their day had begun with a vigil at 3:30am, the Eucharist at 6:30am, and a celebration of Terce at 8:50am, as indeed it does every day throughout the year.

The main sites listed below can be visited by following the four-mile Caldey Island Pilgrimage Way (out.ac/ITkamp).

Caldey Abbey

It is the Cistercian building which dominates. The white walls and terracotta roofs look like a monastery in southern Europe, in defiance of the rather damper and cooler environment of coastal Wales. The name ‘Caldey’ was given by the Vikings, and means ‘the cold island.’

Apart from the balcony at the back of the monastic church, access is prohibited to the rest of the complex. It is possible for men to live with the community on retreat, however, to join the daily cycle of seven monastic services that date from a thousand years ago.

Monks returned to this island for the first time since the Dissolution in 1906. Re-establishing a settled community took two decades. The first monks were members of an Anglican order of Benedictines, under the charismatic leadership of Dom Aelred Carlyle. They switched to the Catholic church en masse in 1913, but their grandiose building plans eventually proved their undoing and the money ran out. They abandoned Caldey Island in 1925 and sought refuge at Prinknash Abbey, near Gloucester.

In 1929, a community of Cistercian monks from Belgium bought the abbey and have been here ever since. Their regime can be described as either devout or strict depending on your point of view. The monks are cloistered, closed to the world, and devoted to their contemplative life.

After a period in the 1980s when low numbers threatened the monastery’s survival, it now has more than a dozen monks. Joining the monastery is a life-long commitment, as it is elsewhere, with vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. On Caldey, silence is kept between 7pm and 7am, and the diet is vegetarian only. Income is generated by tourism and the sale of chocolate and perfume, which the monks make on the island.

As you approach the monastery from the landing stage, you pass a small, round chapel on a hill overlooking the sea, with a large wooden crucifix in front. The hill overlooks Tenby, 2 miles away across the sea. The effigy of Jesus faces inwards, towards the monks. The chapel is dedicated to Our Lady of Peace, and the hill named Calvary, a devotional landscape open to visitors at all times. There is a gift shop and museum below the monastery, and a tea room.

St David’s Parish Church

The parish church dates from Norman times. It was the first religious building to be restored on Caldey, in 1838, by the island’s owner. It was subsequently adopted by the Anglican monks when they arrived in 1906, and has colourful stained glass windows designed by members of the community. Services for visitors are held here on important holy days during the year, and a timetable is displayed at the monastery gift shop. The church is used by both Catholic and Anglican priests.

A simple cross in the graveyard marks an ossuary where the bones of ancient graves have been reinterred. The building itself is mostly Norman, but the cemetery has been used for burials since Roman times. Stonework in the walls of the nave might be traces of a Celtic foundation from the 6th century. A statue of St Samson, the second abbot of Caldey, can be seen a few steps downhill from the church by the side of the access road. He and the early monastic pioneers are best remembered at the Old Priory.

Old Priory

Caldey is one of the oldest monastic islands in Britain, founded by St Pyr in the mid-6th century. It dates from the same period that St Columba was building Iona Abbey in Scotland. The comparisons, however, end there: St Pyr was a fairly hopeless abbot who died after getting drunk one night and falling into the monastery’s well. The island is called Ynys Byr in Welsh, the island of Pyr.

After such an unpromising start, St Samson was sent in to impose more conventional discipline on the early community. He is the subject of a very early Life, which records his attempts to reform Caldey Abbey.

The foundation was under the overall control of St Dyfrig, Bishop of South Wales, who appointed Samson as abbot. It was also heavily influenced by St Illtud, who ran the famous school at Llantwit Major around the same time (page 513). These two saints are closely associated with Caldey Abbey but did not live here permanently themselves.

The monastery was a training ground for many early missionaries and saints. Several of them ended up in Brittany, following in the footsteps of St Samson himself. Among the 6th-century missionaries who spent time on Caldey are St Paul of Leon, St Gildas, and possibly St David himself, patron saint of Wales.

The community had been abandoned by the 10th century following a series of Viking raids. The surviving stone walls are Norman and later, built after the community was revived in 1136. A crudely built church spire looks far older than the church it sits on, despite dating from the 14th century. There is no trace of where the Celtic monastery stood, though the Norman buildings are believed to be on the original site.

Wandering through these dark ruins feels like exploring an abandoned farmyard – until you stumble through the door of the old priory church. This building, dedicated to St Illtyd, has been restored in recent years and now serves as the oldest Roman Catholic church building in Britain. It offers a very different experience to the bright walls and colourful glass of the modern abbey and St David’s Church downhill. Its dark interior, cobblestone floor, and low ceiling feel almost Celtic in their rudimentary constraint.

An important carved memorial stone is displayed in this church. It has an Ogham script engraving – a series of notches along the side – with a Latin inscription added later. Dating from the 6th century, it offers a tantalising link to the early community, though efforts to translate the Ogham and the Latin have produced different readings. The Ogham is thought to mention a ‘tonsured servant of St Dyfrig.’

It is a puzzle why the 20th-century monks did not revive this medieval abbey complex, given the crippling expense of building their current home down the hill. Perhaps the narrow rooms, heavy medieval walls, and tiny windows proved too limited for the ambitions of a new age of monasticism.

Directions

Ferries from: Castle Sands (Tenby town beach), Bridge Street, Tenby SA70 7BP

www.caldeyislandwales.com

W3W: pull.copy.buggy GPS: 51.6377N 4.6860W (abbey)

W3W: nets.rolled.tennis GPS: 51.6378N 4.6853W (church)

W3W: mild.growl.drips GPS: 51.6347N 4.6878W (priory)

The island is open from Easter to the end of September (sometimes into October) but is always closed on Sundays. Ferries from Tenby leave throughout the day from the main town

beach. The crossing takes 20 minutes. Tickets can be bought from the kiosk overlooking Tenby harbour, at the end of Bridge Street, and cost £14 adults, £11 concessions, £7 children. For more information see the Caldey Island website or tel: 01834 844453. A map at the jetty where you arrive on Caldey Island shows the location of the main sites, the furthest of which is the Old Priory, a walk of about 1km up a moderately steep hill.