Abbaye de Planselve

Gimont

In 1142, the lord Géraud du Brouilh, his wife Gausens and their children made a gift of "a hundred concades of land" in a plain then called Planassylva — the "wooded plain" — on the banks of the Gimone. Cistercian monks settled there and founded the abbey of Planselve, which would become the mother house of a veritable network of agricultural granges scattered across the whole of Gascony between 1151 and 1164. Standing on the Toulouse route to Compostela, the abbey also welcomed pilgrims on their way to Santiago, offering them shelter and comfort at the end of a long day's walk. Like so many other communities, Planselve was swept away by the revolutionary storm and ceased all activity in 1789. Yet remains impressive in their scale survive today: a brick enclosure wall 1.5 kilometres long, pierced by a monumental 14th-century gateway, a 12th-century lay brothers' building and two dovecotes that bear witness to the agricultural wealth of the estate. The abbey's precious cartulary, gathering together the charters from 1142 to 1233, is today kept in the Archives départementales du Gers in Auch. Private property, the site is not open to visitors, but its pinkish brick enclosure, glimpsed from the road near Gimont, hints at the past power of this Gascon abbey.

Getting there : A few kilometres from Gimont (Gers), on the old Toulouse route to Compostela

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

Ambient sound