Carmelite Monastery, Kew

As Melbourne gets more crowded, stressed and swollen, it is a consolation to remember there is a community of women who live a simple, largely silent, and contemplative life in the middle of it all. If you look left at the front gate of the Carmelite Monastery in Kew you can just about see the CBD, but if you walk through that gate you enter a place dedicated to quietness since 1922.

I understand one of the early nuns was trained in chemistry, so the Monastery produces its own skin care and perfume range, “Monastique”. Rather magnificently, they also produce talcum powder for men called “Cardinal”.

This is the Monastery from the front gate.

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