Grandpré Abbey

The only remains of the abbey are the gatehouse and the attached range at the main entrance, the farm buildings and the mill, once powered by the Samson brook, which crosses the site.

[1] The abbey was founded in 1231 as a daughter house of Villers-la-Ville Abbey, of the filiation of Clairvaux, on a site where a grange of Villers-la-Ville had stood since the early 13th century, by Henry I, Count of Vianden and Marquis of Namur, and his wife Margaret de Courtenay[2] in memory of her brother Philip II, Marquis of Namur, who had died in 1226 during the Albigensian Crusade.

[3] In 1796, the abbey was suppressed and sold as national property to Jean-Baptiste Paulée, a financier from Paris and Douai.

[3] In 1992 and 1997, the façade and roof of the mill and a subterranean channel were declared protected monuments, as had happened to the gatehouse in 1956.

The abbey is now in private ownership and the buildings are not open to the public, but the gardens are accessible on demand, for a minimal contribution to the proprietor for his or her charitable purposes.