Fontfroide Abbey stands in a fold of the Corbières hills, a few kilometres inland from Narbonne, on a site chosen for its water, its shelter and its distance from the world. Adopted into the Cistercian order in the twelfth century, it became one of the most influential abbeys of Languedoc, its lands worked by lay brothers and its authority felt far beyond the valley. The film follows the architecture as the Cistercians conceived it: a church of severe, luminous proportions, a cloister where the light shifts hour by hour, a chapter house and cellar built for a life divided between prayer and labour. Fontfroide also belongs to the harder history of the Midi, standing close to the events that led to the Albigensian Crusade. Unlike most French abbeys it escaped ruin: bought and restored by private owners in the early twentieth century, it gained stained glass, terraced gardens and roses that now frame the medieval stone. Shot in 4K across the seasons, the programme moves from the austerity of the nave to the colour of the gardens.
