Grandpré Abbey () is a former

Cistercian The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christians, Christian monks and nun ...

located at

Faulx-les-Tombes Faulx-les-Tombes () is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Gesves, located in the province of Namur, Belgium. Remains of Roman settlements have been discovered in the area, which was settled already during the Paleolithic. ...

(in the present municipality of

Gesves Gesves (; ) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Faulx-les-Tombes, Gesves, Haltinne, Mozet, and Sorée. It also includes the hamlets of Gramptinne, Go ...

), in the

province of Namur Namur (; ; ) is a province of Wallonia, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders (clockwise from the West) on the Walloon provinces of Hainaut, Walloon Brabant, Liège and Luxembourg in Belgium, and the French department of Ardennes. Its ...

Wallonia Wallonia ( ; ; or ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region, Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the c ...

, Belgium. The only remains of the abbey are the gatehouse and the attached range at the main entrance, the farm buildings and the mill, once powered by the Samson brook, which crosses the site.

History

The abbey was founded in 1231 as a daughter house of Villers-la-Ville Abbey, of the filiation of Clairvaux, on a site where a

grange Grange may refer to: Buildings * Grange House, Scotland, built in 1564, and demolished in 1906 * Grange Estate, Pennsylvania, built in 1682 * The Grange (Toronto), Toronto, Ontario, built in 1817 * Monastic grange, a farming estate belonging to ...

of Villers-la-Ville had stood since the early 13th century, by Henry I, Count of Vianden and

Marquis of Namur The County of Namur () was a county of the Holy Roman Empire with its military and administrative capital at the town of Namur (city), Namur, at the merging of the Sambre and Meuse rivers in what is now Wallonia, French-speaking Belgium. Under t ...

, and his wife Margaret de Courtenay in memory of her brother

Philip II, Marquis of Namur Philip II (1195–1226), called ''à la lèvre'', was the Marquis of Namur from 1216 to his death. He was the eldest son of Peter II of Courtenay and Yolanda of Flanders. On the death of his maternal uncle Philip the Noble in 1212, his mother Yol ...

, who had died in 1226 during the

Albigensian Crusade The Albigensian Crusade (), also known as the Cathar Crusade (1209–1229), was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, what is now southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted pri ...

. The church was dedicated in 1232. Grandpré was a small community and never thrived or achieved prominence. The number of monks was never more than 20, even though the abbey had a dozen farms in the environs. Nor did Grandpré found any daughter houses. Some restoration work took place in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1740 the abbey was plundered by Dutch troops. At the end of the 18th century, the farm buildings were rebuilt.Blouard, 1954 In 1796, the abbey was suppressed and sold as national property to Jean-Baptiste Paulée, a financier from Paris and Douai. The conventual buildings had been demolished by 1807. In 1992 and 1997, the façade and roof of the mill and a subterranean channel were declared protected monuments, as had happened to the gatehouse in 1956.

Present day

The remaining buildings, which are

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

and

Rococo Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

in style, have been restored and are privately maintained. The abbey is now in private ownership and the buildings are not open to the public, but the gardens are accessible on demand, for a minimal contribution to the proprietor for his or her charitable purposes.

Architectural heritage

Of the extensive abbey buildings burnt and looted in the French Revolution there remains only the extraordinary gatehouse restored in 1771 under Abbot Étienne Defrenne and registered in 1956 by the Commission royale des monuments et des sites.Joseph Delmelle, 1973: ''Abbayes et béguinages en Belgique'', p. 67. Brussels: Rossel Éditions

Notes and references

Bibliography

* Blouard, R., 1954: ''Abbaye de Grandpré''. Namur * Peugniez, Bernard, 2002: ''Routier cistercien'' (2nd edn), pp. 486–487. Moisenay: Editions Gaud

External links

Grandpré website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grandpre Abbey Christian monasteries in Namur (province) Cistercian monasteries in Belgium Gesves