The early history of Mount St Bernard Abbey is linked with an earlier, short-lived foundation of Cistercian monks in Lulworth, Dorset and the Abbey of Mount Melleray in Ireland. Following the suppression of monasteries in France, a small colony of dispossessed Trappist monks had arrived in London in 1794, with the intention of moving on to found a monastery in Canada. They came to the attention of Thomas Weld (of Lulworth), a Catholic recusant and philanthropist who distinguished himself in relieving the misfortunes of refugees of the French Revolution and who provided them with land on which to establish a monastic community on his estate in East Lulworth.