DK Travel : Normandy : Architecture

Page
1
2
3
4
5

La Trinité, Fécamp

This vast and austerely beautiful church owes its scale to a casket containing the Holy Blood of Christ, said to have been washed ashore in the trunk of a fig tree in the 1st century. The abbey built on the spot in the early 13th century attracted streams of pilgrims. Le Précieux Sang is still venerated today.
Lanfranc

Influential Italian lawyer-monk (1005–1089). Became William the Conqueror’s Archbishop at Canterbury.
Le Bec-Hellouin

In 1034, a knight called Herluin exchanged his charger for a donkey and founded a religious community on the banks of the River Risle. When he was joined some eight years later by the influential Italian theologians Lanfranc and Anselm, the monastery grew to become the intellectual heart of Normandy. Disbanded in the Revolution and later demolished, it again became a Benedictine monastery in 1948 (see A Drive Along the Risle, Abbaye Notre-Dame, Le Bec-Hellouin).
Le Domaine d’Harcourt

The ancestral home of the Harcourt family has an important arboretum, created in 1802.
Manoir d’Ango

A glorious Italian Renaissance manor, built for polymath Jehan Ango in the early 16th century.
Mont-St-Michel

Dramatically sited on a lone rock in the Bay of Mont-St-Michel, this famous abbey exerts a huge draw on the thousands who visit every year.
Notre-Dame, Louviers

From the 13th century, the town was an important centre of cloth-making. The lavishly decorated church, with its stunning south porch, reflects its wealth.
Notre-Dame, Verneuil-sur-Avre

Built of a reddish stone called grison , this attractive church is noted for its plethora of saintly statues, mostly 16th-century.
Notre-Dame, Vernon

With its elegant High Gothic west front, complete with graceful rose window, this collegiate church has the feel of a cathedral.
Prieuré de St-Gabriel, Brécy

Set around a courtyard, the lovely honey-stone buildings of this former daughter house of the Abbey of Fécamp are now occupied by a horticultural school. They can be viewed from the outside only.