The Abbaye du Valasse bears another name, Notre Dame du Vœu. In the 12th century, Mathilde the Empress, the granddaughter of William the Conqueror, vowed to found an abbey while held captive in Oxford. At the same time, Galéran de Melan made an identical vow if he managed to survive a terrible storm on his return from the Crusades. Having both survived, they decided to found an abbey.
The Archbishop of Rouen advised Galeran de Meulan and Mathilde to unite their vows, and on February 18, 1156, Pope Adrian IV confirmed the foundation of Le Valasse Abbey under the name of Notre Dame du Vœu.
A community of Cistercian monks settled there. Cistercian monks obeyed the rule of Saint Benedict, focusing on prayer, manual labor and land reclamation.
Over the centuries, the Valasse Abbey was to suffer the ravages of history.
During the Hundred Years’ War, the abbey church was destroyed. It was then rebuilt in the 15th and 16th centuries in a Gothic style, far removed from the sobriety of the Cistercian style. But the Abbey suffered further damage in 1516.
During the French Revolution, the Abbey was sold as national property. Its abbey church was destroyed, and the rest of the Abbey became the residence of a wealthy Le Havre merchant: Jacques-François Begouen, in 1792.
It is to him that we owe the classical château appearance we know today. It was also at this time that architect Pierre-Adrien Paris designed the estate’s surroundings.
These transformations were continued by the Fauquet-Lemaitre family, who became owners of the property in 1833. They left the Abbey after the Second World War.
The Abbaye du Valasse then became a dairy producing a cheese called Le Lillebonne. Cheese production caused considerable damage to the building, which underwent major renovation in the first decade of the 21st century.
