Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Ourscamp

Chiry-Ourscamp

Legend founds everything here, even the name. In 641, Saint Eloi, Bishop of Noyon, had an oratory built on the banks of the Oise. While the oxen were hauling the stones, a bear burst out of the forest and devoured one of them: Eloi then ordered the wild beast to take its victim's place under the yoke, and the docile bear pulled the cart until the work was finished. The "bear's field" — Ourscamp — was born. Five centuries later, in 1129, Bishop Simon de Vermandois offered the site to Saint Bernard, who sent twelve monks from Clairvaux under the leadership of Waleran de Baudemont: the Cistercian abbey became one of the most powerful in Picardy, with an abbey church 102 metres long consecrated in 1201. The surviving marvel is the "salle des morts" (hall of the dead), a vast 13th-century Gothic infirmary where dying monks were watched over. Sold at the Revolution, turned into a spinning mill, the abbey church today lifts skywards the open arcades of its ruined choir, strikingly beautiful at sunset. Since 1941, the Servants of Jesus and Mary, a congregation founded by Father Lamy — a mystic whom Jacques Maritain compared to the Curé d'Ars — have brought prayer back to the old bear's field.

Getting there : Along the D48 between Noyon and Compiègne, on the left bank of the Oise. Car park on site; park and ruins of the abbey church freely accessible in daytime (community of the Servants of Jesus and Mary).

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound