Église

English translation

The text above is the record as published by the Ministère de la Culture, in French. The English below is a machine translation made by TreeAlive, not by the Ministère de la Culture; it has not been checked by a person. Where the two differ, the original is the record. Report a translation error: privacy@treealive.com

History

The chapel of Davron castle is at the origin of the church. It was given between 1117 and 1130 by the lord of the place, Nivard de Poissy, to the Benedictine abbey Notre-Dame de Josaphat, situated at Lèves, near Chartres, to found a priory there. The western portal was no doubt built shortly after. It belongs to the family of splayed Romanesque portals with columns and moulded voussure, common in the first half of the 12th century. The single nave, covered with a false vault coffered with round arch, can be dated to the first half of the 16th century, by observation of its masonry and the visible parts of its roof structure, and by consideration of the history of the stained glass reset in the western opening. The choir, vaulted with ribs and terminated by a circular apse, was rebuilt in the 1630s, by the superintendent of finances of Louis XIII Claude de Bullion, acquirer of the neighbouring seigneury and castle of Wideville in 1630, who placed his coat of arms there. A rare example of rural religious construction in Île-de-France in the classical age, it testifies to the persistence of the Gothic tradition until the middle of the 17th century. Claude de Bullion most probably also had the bell tower built, which rises on three levels and strongly punctuates the most visible façade, to the south. The chapels forming a false transept, which are of great architectural modesty, are more difficult to date. The southern chapel was built in the second half of the 17th or in the 18th century. The northern chapel was built at an indeterminate period, then altered several times. They were vaulted no doubt in the 19th century.

Description

The building presents a relatively simple plan with a single nave covered with a false vault coffered with round arch; a choir vaulted with ribs with two straight bays and circular apse, whose arches rest on pilasters and, in the north-west and south-west corners, on sculpted corbels; two lateral chapels forming a false transept, opening onto the first bay of the choir, and covered with rib vaults. The bell tower, which rises on three levels and is furnished with a pavilion roof, takes place to the south in the angle formed by the last bay of the nave and the chapel. Its ground floor, vaulted with groins, houses the sacristy. Its first floor is served by an external spiral staircase inscribed in a turret.