One of WA’s most extraordinary architectural sights is the nineteenth-century monastic community of NEW NORCIA, 130km northeast of Perth on the Great Northern Highway.

Extravagant buildings, olive trees and Church Bells! New Norcia is like a piece of Old Spain in the middle of the Australian bush.

The town was founded in 1846 by a small band of Benedictine monks. they came to establish a mission to the Aborigines of the Victoria Plains district. Around their monastery they built a small village made up of a church, flour mill, schools, hostel and apiary.

Today this town is one of the great cultural heritage sites of Australia. Two of its buildings are classified by the National Trust and the town as a whole is registered on the National Estate. New Norcia continues to be home to a community of Benedictine monks who own and operate this truly unique settlement.

Dom Rosendo Salvado established the mission (named after St Benedict’s birthplace in Italy) with the aim of converting the local Aborigines to the “twin blessings” of agriculture and Christianity, and to escape persecution back home. Nowadays it’s a popular tourist attraction, which tends to compromise the monastic tranquillity its ageing inhabitants seek, and yet pays for the upkeep of their remarkable endowment.

The community has a roadhouse with a restaurant, a tourist office (daily 9am–5pm; tel 08/9654 8056) and a museum and art gallery (daily 10am–4pm) describing the Benedictines’ motivations in coming here and displaying a fine collection of religious art.