Fort Augustus Abbey.

Fort Augustus Abbey, properly St. Benedict's Abbey, at Fort Augustus, Inverness-shire, Scotland, was a Benedictine monastery, from late in the nineteenth century to 1998.

 

It owed its inception to the desire of John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, for the restoration of monasticism in Scotland. The marquess brought the matter before the superiors of the Anglo-Benedictine Congregation in 1874, promising substantial pecuniary help in the establishment of a house in Scotland, with the understanding that when two other monasteries should have been founded they should all form a separate Scottish congregation. The suggestion was approved of, and the Anglo-Benedictine authorities resolved to incorporate with the Scottish monastery Lamspringe Abbey, in Hanover, which was manned by English monks from 1645 to 1803.

 

Inadequacy of funds had prevented any lasting restoration of this house, but with the help promised by Lord Bute, it seemed possible to revive it in Scotland. Dom Jerome Vaughan, a brother of Cardinal Vaughan, was appointed to superintend the work, and succeeded in collecting from rich and poor in England, Scotland, and Ireland, sufficient means for the erection of a fine monastery a cost of some £70,000.

 

The site at Fort Augustus was given by Simon Fraser, 13th Lord Lovat. It comprised the buildings of a dismantled fort, built in 1729 and originally erected for the suppression of Highland Jacobites. It had been purchased from the Government by the Lovat family, in 1867.

 

The monastic buildings begun in 1876 were completed in 1880, occupying the four sides of a quadrangle about one hundred feet square. In one wing a school for boys of the upper classes was conducted by the monks, with lay masters, for about sixteen years.

 

Up to the year 1882 St. Benedict's monastery remained under the jurisdiction of the Anglo-Benedictine Congregation, but in response to the wishes of the Scottish hierarchy, and of the leading Scottish nobility—notably Lords Lovat and Bute—Pope Leo XIII, by his Brief "Summâ cum animi lætitiâ", dated 12 December 1882, erected it into an independent abbey, immediately subject to the Holy See, thus separating it from English rule. When this step had been accomplished, Lord Lovat made over the property to the Scottish community, by signing the title deeds, which for a time had been held over.

 

In 1888 Dom Leo Linse of the Beuronese Benedictine Congregation, who had resided for more than ten years in England, part of that time as superior of Erdington Priory, near Birmingham, was nominated abbot by the Holy See and received the abbatial benediction at the hands of Archbishop Persico, who had been sent to the abbey as Apostolic Visitor. In 1889, special constitutions, based upon those of the Beuron Benedictine Congregation, were adopted, with the approval of the Holy See, for a term of ten years. These, after certain modifications suggested by experience, received definite approbation in 1901.

 

From 1893 the Solesmes version of the Gregorian melodies was used in all liturgical services. A church of large size, designed by Peter Paul Pugin, was commenced in 1890, replacing a temporary wooden one.

 

 

In 2013, The Observer newspaper reported that Scottish police were investigating allegations that pupils had been subject to physical and sexual abuse while at the abbey school. A BBC Scotland Investigates programme, entitled Sins of Our Fathers,[ contained allegations that Fort Augustus Abbey was used as a "dumping ground" for clergy previously accused of abuse elsewhere. The NSPCC has called for an independent investigation

 

Closure

In 1993, owing to changing educational patterns in Scotland which caused a falling roll, Abbot Mark Dilworth took the decision to close the school. This left the monks with no form of outreach and a drastic drop in income. Inverness and Nairn Enterprise (part of Highlands and Islands Enterprise) introduced the monks to entrepreneur Tony Harmsworth, who was commissioned to install a small Heritage exhibition to provide an immediate income for the monks while he devised a rescue package. It quickly became clear that a small business could never generate sufficient income to support the monks and the rambling Victorian buildings so a major project was begun. The business comprised the largest private heritage exhibition in Scotland,study bedrooms converted into tourist bedrooms (which could be used for retreats), a restaurant, gift shop and a number of franchised businesses including a boat operator and re-enactment centre.

 

The enterprises initially showed great promise, becoming a major tourism force in the Highlands, but it was discovered that the buildings needed far more spending upon them than had ever been envisaged. A larger project was being considered with finance from Historic Scotland and the Local Enterprise Company, but the business was closed down before this could be put into effect. The heritage centre was closed in 1998 and when the monks left, the buildings, which had been leased to the monks at £5 per year, reverted to the Lovat Family and were later sold to a consortium including television presenter Terry Nutkins.[6] They, in turn, sold the abbey to the Santon Group who converted the buildings into apartments known as The Highland Club.

 

 

'For a century, children were sent to the exclusive Fort Augustus Abbey and its prep school for what their parents hoped would be a first-class Catholic education. Run by the devout monks of the Benedictine order, this fee-paying school was the jewel in the crown of Catholic education in Scotland.

 

Yet a six-month investigation into the Abbey and its monks has uncovered five decades of systematic physical and sexual abuse reportedly carried out by a series of sadistic and predatory paedophile monks. Men of God, supposedly.

 

When BBC journalists started investigating this story, Fort Augustus Abbey, in the Highlands, had been closed for 20 years; its prep school, Carlekemp, in East Lothian, for longer.

 

But there were whispers about the brutal practices carried out by some of the monks who had lived in the Abbey and taught in the school.

 

Given that nearly every Benedictine school in England had been involved in a child sex abuse scandal, one had to ask if the boys of Fort Augustus had just had a lucky escape, or if this foreboding old Abbey had closed with its dark secrets intact. The latter would soon emerge to be true.

 

Courageous men like David and Christopher Walls, brothers who lived through experiences that most readers might have believed were the stuff of nightmares, said that the Old Boys network of the school, who trumpeted the place as a wonderful, character-building boot camp, were in denial, and that the investigation should dig deeper. The omertà, or silence, often associated with abuse claims within the Catholic Church had to be broken, they said.

 

One by one, men opened up about the horrors of Fort Augustus, and it soon became clear that what was being uncovered was a suspected paedophile ring of monks who were patient, systematic and callous.

 

For some of these boys, life was torture: daily beatings; blood regularly drawn from the ferocity of birch on bare backside; children as young as seven pulled from their beds in the dead of night of night to be lined up and flogged.

 

Often, they never knew why. It would be years until they twigged.

 

“We were being groomed,” said David Walls, who attended Carlekemp in the late 1950s. His brother Christopher, a year younger, was savagely beaten most days for around three years by Father Aidan Duggan, one of the Abbey’s Australian monks, who have all now been exposed as paedophiles.

 

Suddenly, the beatings stopped.

 

“The relief was palpable,” said David. “You were just grateful. And that’s when the kissing and cuddling started. It wasn’t until later that it fell into place,” said Christopher. “That was what it was all about, all the beatings.”

 

Both boys were repeatedly molested by Duggan, who was one of the most prolific of the offenders we learnt about.

 

Donald MacLeod was raped by Duggan in 1962, when he was 14.

 

“I always sort of felt it was somehow my fault,” said Donald, who had been sent to the school from Australia.

 

He, like many of the abused boys tried to raise the alarm, but was told by the headmaster at the time to “stop telling lies” or he would go to hell.

 

The BBC investigation revealed allegations that headmasters at the school, all monks, had failed to alert police to serious child sex abuse allegations, claiming that they chose either to ignore them, or simply move the offender on.

 

The last surviving of those headmasters, Father Francis Davidson, stepped down last week from a prestigious role as religious superior of a Benedictine college within Oxford University, St Benet’s Hall, after a series of BBC allegations that he covered up child abuse. Last week, Fr Davidson said that he did “not recall them being reported to me during my time as headmaster of Fort Augustus Abbey School” and that he had “always co-operated fully with the police in their investigations and will continue to do so as they progress and further information is gathered”.

 

One of the monks, Father Chrysostom Alexander, is the only one accused of sex abuse who remains alive. He was tracked down to Sydney, where he had been working as a priest.

 

Aged 77, he might he might have taken opportunity to respond to the allegations. Instead, he threatened to call the police, drove his car into mine in a bid to escape questions and was anything but contrite.

 

He may not have answered any questions, but a dark past that he had been avoiding for 30 years had finally caught up with him.

 

He is now at the centre of police investigations in both Scotland and Australia.

 

I salute the men who came forward for our investigation and who were brave enough to speak about the so-called Men of God who have haunted their dreams. There are 10 monks accused of the abuse. Around 50 former pupils who were abused, half of those sexually, have now spoken out.'

[ From the 'Independent' newspaper]

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