Abbaye de Clairefontaine

Polaincourt-et-Clairefontaine

Founded in 1131 or 1132 by monks from the neighbouring abbey of Morimond, fourth of the mother houses sprung from Cîteaux, the abbey of Clairefontaine has known a singular destiny among the Cistercian monasteries of Haute-Saône. Sold as national property in 1793, it escaped outright ruin thanks to a series of unexpected industrial conversions: a glassworks, then an earthenware factory until 1932, before an altogether different use took hold in 1938, that of a psychiatric hospital, a function the site still fulfils today under the name of the Saint-Rémy specialist hospital. This uncommon fate paradoxically allowed a not inconsiderable part of the 18th-century conventual buildings to be preserved, of which the facades, roofs, vestibule and elegant north gallery are now protected as monuments historiques (historic monuments). Of the monastic life of the white monks, only an architectural memory remains, embodied in these walls that have seen prayers, potters' kilns and then hospital care succeed one another; but the name of Clairefontaine continues to recall, at a bend in a Haute-Saône road, the lasting imprint left by Cîteaux in this region.

Getting there : At Polaincourt-et-Clairefontaine, some twenty kilometres from Vesoul, on the road to Jussey

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

Ambient sound