Aiguebelle Abbey

Aiguebelle Abbey (French: Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Aiguebelle) is a Trappist monastery situated in the communes of Montjoyer and Réauville in the département of Drôme, on the borders of the Dauphiné and of Provence, France.

The first monastery here was Benedictine, founded in 1045 by Hugues Adhemar, baron of Grignan, and visited by Pope Paschal II in 1107, but shortly afterwards it fell into disuse.

The abbey's goods were sold off, but the buildings were too far from transport connections to be worth the effort of demolishing for the materials, and therefore were left standing.

In 1843 a Trappist community was established at Staoueli in Algeria,[5] later Abbey of Our Lady of Atlas, which in turn gave rise to two communities, Notre-Dame de Tibhirine,[6] at Tibhirine in Algeria, and Notre-Dame de l'Atlas au Maroc, at Midelt in Morocco.

Despite some demolitions and a great deal of restoration work, the abbey has kept the majority of its medieval buildings: the church, cloisters, sacristy, chapter house, refectory, kitchen and the lay-brothers' quarters.