The Anglican Benedictine community of nuns that has made its home at Malling Abbey since 1916 was founded in 1891 as an active parish sisterhood. The sisters worked among the poor in Edmonton, North London until they became attracted to the Benedictine contemplative life through the preaching of Abbot Aelred Carlyle. In 1906 they moved to a farmhouse in Baltonsborough, a remote village in Somerset, to begin their enclosed monastic life under Benedictine vows. In 1916 the Trustees of Malling Abbey invited them to move to the more spacious and historic Abbey and to continue its tradition of Benedictine prayer, worship, work, study, and hospitality.

This they have done for nearly a century, cherishing the Abbey’s heritage of peace and God-centred quiet, being stewards of this ‘place where prayer has been valid’ on behalf of the church and the world..