All About the Abbaye Collection

March 25, 2019

Quite a few Summers ago now Russell and I travelled to Northern France to visit the battle fields of World War One. It was a trip that we had wanted to make for years but the reality was far more harrowing than I think either of us had imagined.

At the time, my son was the same age as some of those young men that had left towns and villages all over England never to return, and it brought the tragedy of the immense loss of life into even sharper focus.

On our third day, we saw a sign for the ‘Abbaye des Valloires‘, a chapel and gardens. It was meant as a gentle relief from the horrors of battlefield exploration and turned out to be so very much more. The Abbaye was serene, stunningly beautiful and very healing. The gardens were colourful and joyful, and we had a lunch decorated profusely with edible flowers which we had eaten in the Abbaye’s orangery.

When we were home again, I researched the history of the Abbaye and its gardens, and the people who had lived there over the centuries. Slowly, the idea of a new range began to crystallise for us and eventually became our hugely popular Abbaye collection.

All the fragrances are inspired by the Abbaye; from Countess Marie who was the first inhabitant of the Abbaye, to Monsieur Clement who remodelled the gardens in the early 1970’s. Even the garden itself is commemorated in Poire 1796, named after the oldest pear tree in France which still grows in the grounds.

We commissioned a young local artist to paint the original watercolour design for the packaging and, in that, the collection was launched in the Autumn of 2014.

Today, over four years later, it is still as popular as ever; the fragrances seem to have a universal appeal and are amongst our personal favourites. We really love them and hope you will too!