The Abbey was founded in 1881 by the Empress Eugénie (1826–1920) as a mausoleum for her late husband Napoleon III (1808–1873), and their son the Prince Imperial (1856–1879), both of whom rest in the Imperial Crypt, along with Eugénie herself, all in granite sarcophagi provided by Queen Victoria. After the church and monastery were founded, they were initially administered by Premonstratensian Cano
ns. In 1895, the Empress replaced them with French Benedictine monks from St Peter's Abbey, Solesmes. Fernand Cabrol, monk and scholar, became prior and afterwards abbot (1903); Henri Leclercq and a small group of French monks joined the house at the same time, and Leclercq and Cabrol collaborated for many years in scholarly endeavours. The community, once famed for its scholarly writing and musical tradition of Gregorian chants, became depleted in number by 1947, and was augmented by a small group of English monks from Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire. In 2006 the community elected the first English Abbot of Farnborough—the Right Reverend Dom Cuthbert Brogan. Public tours of the Abbey take place every Saturday at 3pm, with the tour comprising a tour of the church and a visit to the crypt.
