No Crossings On Any Sunday

Situated a few miles off the coast of Pembrokeshire, Caldey Island is still home to a handful of Cistercian monks.

There has been a monastery on this island for 1500 years. There are no vehicles on the island save a knock-off JCB, a Peugeot van and a rusty tractor. In Tenby harbour you pay a fare and board a boat to make the 20 minute crossing to Caldey Island from the mainland.

Throughout my childhood, the monks of Caldey Island were known as the Chocolate Making Monks.

For decades, a Caldey Monk had been perfecting and producing his own personal chocolate recipes, and selling them to visitors in the island gift shop and on the mainland.

When I visited in July 2023, I got talking to a woman working in the gift shop, who said that the monk responsible for the chocolate making had retired the year prior, and that they were looking for another confectionery-inclined monk to take over the island's chocolate factory. Until then, the chocolate will be produced by a confectioner on the mainland, to precisely the same recipe.

Due to the ageing monastic community, the monks are also no longer able to continue to manufacture their perfume on the island.