The old Cistercian monastery of Melón contains in its church one of the largest and most imposing sanctuaries in Galician monastic architecture. It was founded by monks from Clairvaux Abbey in France, in 1142. It was once very powerful, as attested by the remaining architecture.
Various rooms in the monastery, the galleries in the cloister and the two later chapels are currently undergoing restoration, as well as the entrance to the monastic site.
The only element remaining from the primitive Romanesque church with three naves is one section of a nave, the transepts with two semicircular chapels, and an interesting ambulatory with freestanding columns. Its walls and roofs were refurbished once again in the late 19th century in the historicist style. It is topped with cross and quarter-sphere vaults, and has a rectangular tower at the point where the transept meets the naves.
References:Saint-Georges de Boscherville Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey. It was founded in about 1113 by Guillaume de Tancarville on the site of an earlier establishment of secular canons and settled by monks from the Abbey of Saint-Evroul. The abbey church made of Caumont stone was erected from 1113 to 1140. The Norman builders aimed to have very well-lit naves and they did this by means of tall, large windows, initially made possible by a wooden ceiling, which prevented uplift, although this was replaced by a Gothic vault in the 13th century. The chapter room was built after the abbey church and dates from the last quarter of the 12th century.
The arrival of the Maurist monks in 1659, after the disasters of the Wars of Religion, helped to get the abbey back on a firmer spiritual, architectural and economic footing. They erected a large monastic building one wing of which fitted tightly around the chapter house (which was otherwise left as it was).