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This Cistercian abbey, which is a listed building is situated in the Haut-Escaut Valley, in the Rue des Vignes district, 10 kms from Cambrai and 24 kms from Saint-Quentin. It is the most prestigious historical building in the North of France. The Vaucelles Abbey as it can be seen today remains an exceptional construction, not so much because of its dimensions but also because of the quality of the renovation and its cultural influence. It was a long and daily struggle to get there - « Vaucelles is a love story « . It had been a ruin, and before that it had been turned into a weaving factory and then a farm.
We offer to take you for a historical tour, starting with the involvment of the Cistercian monks and moving on to the years of renovation that we owe to Alain and Marie-Maxellende Lagoutte and the Friends of the Vaucelles Abbey association. The Vaucelles Abbey was truly Cistercian in the sense that it was built in the heart of the Haut-Escaut Valley. The foundation stone was laid by Saint-Bernard in August 1132, which made the abbey a daughter of Clairvaux, the 13th abbey founded by that Father of the Church. Notre-Dame de Vaucelles was erected on an estate given up by Hugues d'Oisy, Lord of Crèvecoeur s/ Escaut and it took several decades for it to be completed. In the 13th century the Abbey had the biggest Cistercian church in Europe – bigger than Notre-Dame de Paris. Today the altar, made of Carrare marble can be seen in the Saint-Géry church in Cambrai and some of the books that had been assembled in the Library can be found at the Cambrai library.
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