The Royaumont Abbey

Discover the Royaumont Abbey and its medieval garden...

The Royaumont abbey was founded by King Saint Louis, (Louis IX) who stayed several times. The Cistercian monks occupied Royaumont till the revolution. In 1791, the abbey is transformed into a cotton mill.
As of 1869 the nuns undertook important restoration works. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Gouin family bought the abbey and created the Royaumont Foundation in 1964.
The Royaumont Abbey inaugurated in 2004 a garden of medieval inspiration which revives some of Hildegard von Bingen's list of plants, this 12th century Abbess, is well known for her botanical and medicinal works, but also for her musical compositions.
The garden appends, almost a century apart, the superb French garden designed in 1912 by the well known landscape gardener Achille Duchene for the abbey's cloister.

Finally the park is a succession of very distinct periods, which gives it this so romantic charm: to bring the water to the abbey the monks, in the 13th century, canalized rivers far upstream, in the 19th century two new canals are derived from the first for the needs of the cotton mill, tree bordered alleys and a grotto created by the nuns of the noviciate.