The Abbey of Saint Valery, like many other monasteries, had suffered through
its own renown; the relics of its founder had been carried off by the pious
theft of a Count of Flanders, and had been restored by the pious intercession
of a Duke of the French. Like many other monasteries too, the duty of its defence
had given a title to a line of temporal nobles.
Photo © Donar
Reiskoffer
22 aug 2003
The Advocates of Saint Valery were powerful lords; one of them, as we have seen,
had married a daughter of Normandy, and a younger branch of his race filled
a high and honourable place among the great houses of the Norman land. Of this
famous abbey the vast encircling wall still remains, but the remains of the
church are small, and of a date somewhat later than the days with which we are
concerned. But the ancient town, rising, with its parish church, above the modern
port which has arisen rather higher up the river, still retains its walls and
gateways and general mediaeval look in singular perfection. Below, immediately
on the coast, stands a ruined tower of rude work, to which an inaccurate or
misunderstood legend has attached the name of Harold of England. The spot, even
apart from its historical associations, is in every way striking. The broad
estuary, the wooded heights above it, the ancient and the modern town, unite
to form a singularly varied landscape. It was here, on the wide expanse of water
into which the mouth of the great Picard river spreads itself, that the fleet
of William rode, still waiting for the longlooked for south wind which should
at once bear him and his host to the shores of Sussex.. --Freeman