A retreatant in lay clothes walks alone down a stone-paved cloister, hands in pockets, looking up at a high window.
Take part

Three paths in, none of them dramatic.

You can make a year-long enquiry about becoming an oblate, you can come on retreat for a night or a fortnight, or you can volunteer one hour a week to sit with an older neighbour. Begin, in each case, by writing one letter.

Path I · Oblation

Become an oblate.

Oblates are lay men and women — and a few clergy — who, in their own kitchens and offices, keep a private rule of life under the guidance of the Benedictine community. We have, at present, twenty-eight oblates: a Welsh shepherd, two retired bishops, a London surgeon, an A&E nurse from Reading, a teacher in Newcastle, a violin maker in Pershore, a recovering addict in Bath. You do not need to be Anglican; you do not need to be married, single, ordained, retired, employed, or anything in particular.

The shape of an oblation: a year of enquiry by letter and at least three retreat visits; a year of novitiate under a rule written with the Prior; finally, a solemn profession in chapel. The whole process takes about thirty months. There is no fee.

To begin: write a short letter to Br. Crispin, Hospitality Master. Tell him who you are, why you have come, and what shape your week takes. He will write back within a month.

Write to the Hospitality Master
Path II · Retreat

Come on retreat.

Sarum College keeps a small number of single guest rooms for retreatants of the Trust: a bed, a desk, a chair, a window. You are welcome to come for a night or a fortnight; you eat in silence at breakfast and lunch with the brothers, and you may join the Daily Office at four hours of the day.

2026 rates: £68 per night, full board, single room. £42 if you are an ordinand, a hospice worker, a carer, or a refugee — and if those rates are still beyond reach, the Pershore Hospitality Fellowship covers everything.

Retreats may be silent or, on certain weeks of the year, conversational. There is no formal programme; you are not asked to do anything, and you are not asked to explain why you have come.

See the retreat diary
Path III · Volunteer

Become a Sunday Doors befriender.

We need 14 new befrienders by Michaelmas 2026: 4 in Salisbury, 3 in West Wiltshire, 4 in West Berkshire, 2 in Worcestershire, 1 in South Buckinghamshire. We are particularly looking for men over 50 (we have, frankly, too few), and for native Welsh speakers in the rural Wiltshire-Hereford borders, where a number of our older neighbours grew up in Welsh-speaking villages.

The commitment: one hour a week for at least a year, ideally on the same day each week. A free eight-hour training course, run twice a year at Sarum College. An enhanced DBS check (paid for by the Trust). Reimbursement of mileage at 45p a mile for rural visits. A monthly group debrief by phone with the scheme coordinator.

1 hr

A week, for a year

The smallest meaningful unit of being remembered.

8 hrs

Training

Two Saturdays in March or two in October. Free, including lunch.

£0

Cost to you

Training, DBS check, mileage all covered by the Trust.

Express interest About Sunday Doors
Short answers

Four questions we are asked often.

No. About a quarter of our oblates are not. We have Methodists, Roman Catholics, a Quaker, two Episcopalians, and one inquirer from a Reform Jewish background who has been with us for eleven years. We ask only that you make peace with — not necessarily agreement with — the Anglican liturgical idiom in which we pray.
No. Oblates are explicitly lay Benedictines who live in the world — in households, in jobs, in marriages, in caregiving. The point of oblation is not to leave your life; it is to bring the Rule into the life you already have.
We do not begin the oblation process with anyone under twenty-five (the Rule is best read by people who have already lived a bit), or — for the very practical purposes of the noviciate — with anyone over seventy-eight. Sunday Doors befrienders have, in practice, ranged from twenty-two to eighty-four.
Yes. Compline at Eight is at 20:00 on every Tuesday of the year. The chapel door, by the south porch of Sarum College, is open from 19:50. There is one beeswax candle. There is no homily and no collection. You may bring a child, a friend, or just yourself.