Alton Abbey is an Anglican Benedictine monastery (founded in 1895) in the village of Beech, near Alton, Hampshire, England. The abbey is not far from one of Hampshire's highest points, King's Hill (218 m). The community was founded by the Revd Charles Plomer Hopkins in 1884, as the "Society of Saint Paul", in Rangoon (Burma) and Calcutta (India) to work with destitute or distressed merchant seafarers and their chaplains. Noted for its beauty and tranquility, Alton Abbey has been described in The Times as "the best-kept secret in the Church of England",