Belmont Abbey Historic District

Belmont Abbey Historic District covers 37.5 acres on the western edge of a Benedictine monastery and college campus in Gaston County, North Carolina. Its buildings, sites and objects date from the 1880s onward and include the Abbey Cathedral, the Monastery, the College Building (now Stowe Hall), Saint Leo Hall, The Haid, the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes and the Abbey Cemetery. Most buildings use the American Benedictine style, a vernacular Gothic Revival in handmade red brick with tall arched windows and restrained ornament. Dom Michael McInerney, a monk who lived at the Abbey, designed many of them over a career of about six decades. The district is recognized for its part in spreading Catholicism across the Southeast. Abbot and Bishop Leo Haid led the Abbey from 1885 to 1924, and under him it founded other monasteries and schools in the region. The Abbey still houses monks and a college of about 1,000 students.