Aylesford Priory Day Trip in Kent travelling from London report

Hello everyone, I hope life is treating you well. I wanted to make this blog post to share with you my experiences of going to Aylesford Priory for a day trip iin October 2024. My church was involved in a 3 church initiative where members signed up to go on this trip. I live in London and someone in our group drove us up to Aylesford Priory and a group of us chipped in to the petrol money to cover the journey. I do have issues with mobility and my spine and this was ideal for me to get to a day trip not far from me and to be taken there by car.

I didn’t take many photos of the event. I found it though a highly good spiritual experience. I attended a wonderful Catholic service and received Communion and felt that the Holy Spirit was present in that church. You could also bless yourself with Holy water outside the church. They do have two services, one for Anglican people and Catholic. Being non demontional and someone who still attends there childhood Catholic church in the week for weekday services. It was perfect for me to attend the Catholic service. I would like to go back and experience a longer retreat and it is offered this year.

My favourite Catholic Saint is Saint Teresa of Avila who was wickedly courageously good. One of the rooms there which our group hired out was a room dedicated in her honour, It was such an honour for me to be in that room.

It was lovely for me to be with other church members in a tranquil place as well and a place to mediate on my faith. It gave me needed solace.

The bed of water is quite small there around the gardens there, but the grounds they are pretty big and there is a place to sit around the bed of water that my video I made shows.

They also have a Peace garden which was lovely to see as the words peace was translated in different languages which was nice to see.

The Gift Shop was such a gift to me and I loved shopping in it and coming away with some favoured items like a Mother Mary brooch and a fridge magnet for example. It was a lovely gift shop.

The cafe looked lovely to me as well with gorgeous homemade food like quiche, I wanted to order some for Christmas and couldn’t get my hands on them when in London.

I have uploaded the PDF that we used in our group to guide our day trip. It was less than £35 for the day including transport there which was really cheap. I am going back there I hope. I hope that this helps someone my report and check their website out for more information if interested. If this retreat is not for you, why not consider another one eleswhere.