Up to the year 1192, the site was almost deserted. The foundation of the abbey is attributed to
Hugues de Pierrepont,
Bishop of Liège, who in 1187 decided to establish Val-Saint-Lambert. Construction began in 1202 after he gave a tract of land and woods situated in what was then called the Champ des Maures to a group of monks. The abbey was a daughter house of
Signy Abbey in
Ardennes,
France, which was a daughter house of
Igny Abbey. Val-Saint-Lambert Abbey was inhabited by a religious community for centuries; it prospered and became powerful. It was completed before 1796 when the monks were expelled as a result of the French Revolution, at which time the buildings were demolished and the holdings were sold as public goods. In 1825, the abbey ruins were purchased by the chemist François Kemlin and the engineer Auguste Lelièvre, who converted the building into a glass works. The factory today provides demonstrations of glass-blowing and crystal engraving and items are put on sale in the showroom. A restoration project, known as the Cristal Park project, commenced in 2004, is to restore the Val Saint Lambert chateau and the abbey and to establish a retail village with 4 residential developments, a Business Park with 12 office buildings, and a new crystal glassworks, a 120-room hotel, indoor ski-slope, water park, restaurants and cafés. ==Architecture and fittings==