Abbaye de Valcroissant, Cistercian abbey in Die, France

Abbaye de Valcroissant is a former Cistercian monastery in a valley about 5 km east of Die, built of light tan and grey stone. Its church has a flat chevet with four chapels, one used as the sacristy, and a round window high in the facade. A wooden gallery reached by an exterior stair stands above an arched doorway, and the convent buildings, larger than the church, include a chapter house and a refectory with a twelve-petalled rose window.

Founded in 1188 as the eighth and last daughter house of Bonnevaux Abbey, Valcroissant never grew large: it founded no daughter abbeys and counted only about a dozen monks, five in 1551. In 1568 Protestants expelled the monks, and the abbey was not reoccupied before its suppression in 1791. Sold after the Revolution, it survived largely intact except for the cloister, which has completely disappeared.

The Latin name Vallis Crescens, "growing valley", gave the abbey its French name Valcroissant. The monks were expelled by Protestants in 1568, and after 1791 the buildings served as a farm, with the former church used for storage and sheep rearing. Marcel Légaut, a mathematician and philosopher, bought and restored the abbey in the 1950s, and his son Rémy continues the work with the Amis de Valcroissant.

The abbey stands about 5 km east of Die in a valley beneath the Glandasse. It is still a working sheep farm with overnight accommodation, so visitors share the grounds with farm activity. The cloister has disappeared entirely; the church, chapter house, refectory and west wing survive and can be seen from the courtyard.

The torrent of Valcroissant fed one of the aqueducts supplying the Roman city of Dea Augusta, today Die. The aqueduct's specus, its covered channel, was found on the site in July 1962. The abbey itself was founded much later, in 1188, by monks from Bonnevaux.