Mortemer Abbey

Mortemer Abbey (French: L'Abbaye de Mortemer, pronounced [labei də mɔʁtəmɛʁ]) is a former Cistercian monastery in the Forest of Lyons between the present Lyons-la-Forêt and Lisors, some 34 km (21 mi) southeast of Rouen in the department of Eure.

The stagnant water of the drainage lake, dug out by the monks to dry up the marshy land around the quick-running Fouillebroc stream, was called the "dead pond" - in French "morte mare" - and gave the monastery its name.

The 12th-century buildings were already more or less derelict by the time of the French Revolution, and subsequent use as a convenient source of cut stone for local construction reduced them to little more than a ruin.

Matilda of England was forced by her father Henry I to stay in a room in the abbey for 5 years.

[citation needed] Four monks were murdered during the French Revolution and their ghosts are also said to haunt the abbey.