Abbaye de Trois-Fontaines, première fille de Clairvaux

Trois-Fontaines-l'Abbaye

Three years after the foundation of Clairvaux, in 1118, Bernard sent out a first swarm: on land obtained from Hugues de Vitry by Guillaume de Champeaux, bishop of Châlons and his friend, Abbot Roger and his monks settled deep in a forest of Champagne, near three springs. Trois-Fontaines is the first daughter of Clairvaux, and it swarmed in its turn: nine abbeys came out of it, Lachalade in the Argonne as early as 1128, Orval in 1132, Cheminon, and then, at the end of the chain, houses in Hungary. Its church, built around 1135-1145, measured nearly seventy metres, with a transept of forty and a flat chevet, following the plan that Clairvaux then imposed on its daughters. A monk of the house, Aubry de Trois-Fontaines, wrote there in the 13th century a universal chronicle running down to 1241. After a fire in 1703, the commendatory abbot Henri de Thiard de Bissy had the cloister and the dormitory rebuilt from 1716, a park laid out, and, in 1741, a monumental gateway with Corinthian pilasters raised, which still serves as the entrance. Sold in 1794, the abbey lost the vaults of its nave. What remains today is the façade and the walls of the abbey church open to the sky, the 12th-century cellar sinking beneath the bank, an ice-house, a fishpond crossed by the Bruxenelle and the 18th-century buildings, in a park that the comte de Fontenoy held from 1891 to 1956 and that an association keeps alive.

Wikipédia — Abbaye de Trois-Fontaines ↗

Getting there : From Saint-Dizier by the D 16 towards Trois-Fontaines-l'Abbaye. Private estate maintained by the Association des Amis des Sites de Trois-Fontaines: park, remains of the abbey church and cellar open to visitors in season (times and charges on the abbey's website), events on the heritage days.

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

Ambient sound