A place for teaching

This large farming estate, founded in the 11th century by the lord of the nearby village of Creully and attached to Fécamp Abbey, found its old vocation and a form of community life with the creation of France’s first horticultural teaching centre in the 1920s. This private college, which later became the Ecole du Paysage et de l’Horticulture (School of Landscaping and Horticulture), accepts more than 100 students each year, creating thematic gardens that the public can visit each summer.

The noble whitestone buildings form a lovely ensemble, whose primary point of interest is the preservation of the main elements of the priory: gatehouse, tower of justice, refectory. The jewel is the abbey church itself, which curiously stands apart; today all that remains is the choir, since the nave was destroyed in the middle of the 18th century. It is a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture in Normandy, with its two interior levels and broad arcades. The decorations are particularly remarkable, offering a great variety of motifs: broken rods, plants, twisted mouldings, animal heads, etc. A large Gothic window, added at a later date in the apse wall, brings in abundant light. Above it, one can see traces of a fresco depicting the Annunciation on the choir vault.