The abbey house is a sales area for products created by the monks who are there. It was recently reopened to the public. In addition, a new guest house is being planned and major landscaping work is being done to bring the place up to accessibility standards. The history of the site is quite remarkable: In 1034, the 40-year-old knight Herluin was struck by grace. He abandoned the princely court and took refuge in a place devoid of everything: the Bec valley. There he lived an eremitic existence. This exile attracted vocations around him and the site became a great spiritual site in Europe.
The Hundred Years' War, the Bologna Concordat, the conflict between the Huguenots and the Catholics, the place of rebirth and successive declines, the abbey was severely degraded in 1792. In 1809, the church and the chapter house were razed to the ground. The convent buildings were transformed into stables. Then in 1901, the abbey was assigned to the Ministry of War and in 1945 to the Ministry of National Education in charge of historical monuments. An association was created for its rescue and in 1948, the monks of the community of the Benedictine congregation of Mont-Olivet, founded in the 14th century under Bernard Tolomeï, settled in the abbey. It was from 1949 that the State took over the construction of the enclosure and canopy and the community the interior restoration of the buildings.