Free visit of the Beaumont-le-Roger Priory
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In 1013, the Abbey of Bernay was founded from the property that Judith de Bretagne (?-1017), Duchess of Normandy and wife of Richard II (996-1026), attributed to her and of which the site of «Belmont» is part. In 1048, Roger built a fortified castle and founded a religious establishment: the collegiate church of the Trinity. This act is the symbolic expression of the place of this new seigneury in the governance of the duchy. The «castrum et collégiale» ensemble is part of a strategy of administrative and military structuring put in place by Guillaume the Conqueror and followed by his sons to «quadriller» Normandy. Photography Attached to the Abbey of Bec-Hellouin, the site becomes a priory of the Benedictine order whose members gradually decrease over the centuries. So in 1820, the textile industry came to occupy the site (cotton mill, ribbon factory, ...) but after a fire, the site served as stone quarries until 1862. It was then that the antiques company bought the site to save it from ruin. From the 1950s on, it was taken over by the State, which began a long programme of work aimed at stabilizing the ruins.