Restoration on the Cistercian abbey complex began in 1999 (European Union funding). Founded by the marquis Manfredo of the Aleramici, the earliest written record of the abbey dates to the 25th July 1135. In 2003, during a watching brief undertaken on the laying of underground services and relaying of the road surface, several sectors of the monastery were investigated. A small 17th century room was identified to the west of the entrance, probably adjoined by a smaller room, with traces of plaster on the walls and a floor of horizontally arranged tiles covered with mortar. These rooms, and a further three identified in a trench along the excavation’s western edge, may be identified as stables built in the 17th century, and which do not appear on 18th century plans. In the central part of the excavation two stretches of paving made up of cobbles and brick/tile fragments were uncovered. These were in use prior to the raising of the road level. In the far northern area part of a brick-built well came to light. This was accessed by a stairwell built in the second half of the 19th century and later filled with rubble. In the area in front of the guest quarters part of the brick foundations of a modern wall, post-dating the guest quarters, was exposed. Short stretches of brick wall, belonging to the stable built in the first half of the 18th century and demolished within the century, came to light in the area in front of the entrance to the square, by the corner of the refectory. These walls partially intercepted a brick-vaulted drain, part of the monastery’s original layout. An intervention at the front of the church exposed a layer of fill containing rubble, human bones and charcoal, robbed building materials, an earth grave and two stretches of wall, perhaps relating to the 16th century enclosure. South of the portico, where the antique oven was situated, a large part of a room was uncovered, its walls made of reused bricks and with a brick, herringbone pattern floor, one of various residential rooms used until the 18th century by the tenants of the complex. Only a number of rubble-filled pits and two water pipes emerged in the trench dug along the eastern side of the square. A few metres from the cloister gate, a stretch of the foundations of the portico wall, attested between the 18th and 19th century, was investigated. South of this a brick-built well, perhaps datable to the same period, was exposed. A watching brief during the laying of a GPL installation did not reveal any archaeological deposits of importance.