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Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

Notre-Dame-du-Pré Abbey in Valmont, originally called Sainte-Marie, is a Benedictine abbey founded in 1169 by Nicolas d'Estouteville, seigneur of Valmont. It is entrusted to detached monks from Hambye Abbey and serves as a necropolis for the Estouteville family. The abbey church, rebuilt several times, was completed in the 16th century in a pure Renaissance style, with possible Italian influences. The axial chapel, known as Six Hours, built in 1520 under Abbé Jehan Ribaud, houses tombs of the Sires of Estouteville and stained glass windows of the sixteenth century.

The abbey underwent a reform by the Maurists in 1754 after an attempt aborted in 1680 by Louis de La Fayette, Abbé Commendataire. Dissolved in 1789 during the Revolution, its buildings were sold as national goods in 1791. In the 19th century, Eugène Delacroix drew inspiration from the ruins for works preserved at the Louvre and the national museum that bears his name. The abbey returned to a monastic vocation in 1994 with the installation of Benedictines de Lisieux, followed by the restoration and consecration of a new abbey church in 2004.

Conventual buildings, organized around a cloister, include elements such as chapter, dorm, orangery and orchard. The abbey church, in ruins, preserves a five-sided Renaissance choir and an ionic columnium triforium. The axial chapel, dedicated to the Virgin, presents a vault with prominent veins and windows of 1552 illustrating her life. Several parts of the site are classified or listed as historical monuments between 1951 and 1995, thus protecting its architectural and funerary heritage.

Among the notable abbots are Jehan Ribaud, reconstructor of the Abbey in the 16th century, and Louis de La Fayette, introducer of the Maurist reform. The Countess Marie II of Saint-Pol is buried there, and the tombs of the d'Estouteville (15th–12th centuries) are still visible there. The site, linked to figures like Delacroix, embodies both a Norman artistic, religious and aristocratic heritage.

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