Palais Bénédictine

The Palais Bénédicitne at Fécamp, on the Normandy coast, 60 km west of Rouen, is a huge factory built between 1882 and 1888 in a mixture of the Neo-Gothic and Neo-Renaissance styles. It was designed by the architect Camille Albert (1852-1942) for Alexandre-Prosper Le Grand (1830-98), wine merchant and manufacturer from 1863 of Benedictine liqueur, supposedly after he re-discovered the medieval recipe in his library. The process involved the use of 27 local plants and spices, and was carried out in the Palais on an industrial scale. The Palais is now a museum, partly devoted to Benedictine, showing the distillery in the cellars and the plants used in the liqueurs, and partly to the arts, displaying ivories, enamels, locks and religious images of the late medieval period from le Grand’s collection. One section describes the history of the Benedictine abbey at Fécamp, and another displays modern art.