Abbaye d'Aunay

Aunay-sur-Odon

Around 1131, Jourdain de Say and his wife Luce gave a piece of land on the northern slope of the Mont des Lenques, in the Calvados, so that an abbey dedicated to Our Lady might be founded there. The founder's son-in-law, Richard du Hommet, hereditary constable of England for Normandy and a powerful figure at the Anglo-Norman court, then took the abbey under his wing and contributed greatly to its rise. At first affiliated to the order of Savigny, the abbey joined the Cistercian family in 1147, becoming a daughter house of the abbey of Savigny at the moment when that whole Norman order passed into the fold of Citeaux. The centuries went by, the Revolution came, then the industrial age: after the monastery closed, the site was turned in succession into a textile mill and then a cheese dairy, an activity that carried on until 1976. Of the medieval abbey church, only the eastern part of the transept aisle survives today, while a few 17th-century conventual buildings, including the guesthouse and refectory range, still bear witness to the monastic life of the past. The Calvados archives carefully preserve the seals and medieval documents of this Norman abbey with its eventful history, which passed in a few centuries from prayer to the dairy industry.

Getting there : On the heights of Aunay-sur-Odon, in the Suisse Normande (Calvados)

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

Ambient sound