It stands on a small hill overlooking the city of Hereford to the east, with views across to the Black Mountains in Wales to the west.

[3] A move to transfer the training of monks to the individual monasteries of the English Benedictine Congregation led to Belmont being allowed to take its own novices in 1901, and become an independent house in 1917.

[4] The Priory was elevated to the rank of abbey by Pope Benedict XV, who issued the Papal bull Praeclara Gesta on 21 March 1920 and soon after, on 30 June 1920 the Community of St Michael's elected Prior Aelred Kindersley, originally a monk of Downside, as their first Abbot.

Built in the decorated, early English style, it demonstrated the resurgent optimism of the restored Catholic faith.

[6] The exterior is in local pink sandstone, simple and unadorned, reminiscent of many classical monastic facades of the fourteenth century.

[7] Under a wooden roof stands the monastic choir, where the community gathers five times a day for the Divine Office and Mass.

[8] The monastic community follows the Rule of St Benedict under the guidance of an Abbot, centred on the Divine Office and Mass prayed daily in the Abbey Church.

[10] Today the monks undertake numerous works including the pastoral care of the Catholics in Herefordshire, Cumbria, Worcestershire and South Wales.

In addition the community maintains a small foundation at Lurín near Lima, Peru, the Monastery of the Holy Trinity.

[11] A police investigation resulted in Father John Kinsey being sentenced to five years at Worcester Crown Court in 2005 by Judge Andrew Geddes for a series of serious offences relating to assaults on schoolboys attending Belmont Abbey School in the mid-1980s.

[12] The Abbey and the daily activities of a number of monks were the subject of 3 Episodes of the television series Retreat: Meditations from a Monastery, first shown on BBC Four in October 2017.