Abbaye d'Aywiers, Former Cistercian abbey in Couture-Saint-Germain, Belgium

Abbaye d'Aywiers is a former Cistercian nunnery in Couture-Saint-Germain, founded around 1215. The surviving 18th-century buildings include the former abbatial palace, now a château, with a square tower and two pavilions added in the 19th century. The nine-hectare park is enclosed by the original abbey wall, which incorporates three gates: porte Saint-Benoît, porte Sainte-Lutgarde and porte de Grâce.

Benedictine nuns from Awirs, near Liège, moved to Lillois in 1204 and then to the marshy Lasne valley, where they adopted the Cistercian rule around 1215. The abbey came to rule over 2,000 hectares and was rebuilt three times; the present buildings date from the 18th century. It was suppressed in 1796, and the church, cloister and adjoining rooms were demolished in the 19th century.

The name Aywiers, like Awirs near Liège where the nuns came from, means something like "the streams". Saint Lutgarde of Tongres, who spoke no French, joined around 1206 and died here in 1246; her biographer was the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpré. The abbey's pulpit is now in the Saint-Joseph church in Waterloo.

Access to the grounds is limited to specific occasions such as the Plants and Gardens Festival, which takes place twice yearly. Plan your visit around these open times, as the site is otherwise closed to the public.

The abbey's surviving walls hold three gates: Saint-Benoît, Sainte-Lutgarde and de Grâce. The Saint-Benoît gate was restored by Albert Storrer, the engineer-architect who was curator of the Brussels Palace of Justice. The monastic church, cloister and adjoining rooms were demolished in the 19th century and quarried for stone.