The best road cycling routes around Droué

Placed under the patronage of Saint Hilaire, this parish was given by Gannelon de Montigny, lord of the place, to the abbey of Marmoutier around 1042. Its reconstruction probably dates from this period; it then became a priory. The church has a rectangular nave ending in a choir with a flat chevet. An examination of the masonry easily reveals two distinct periods of construction: the Romanesque period and the Renaissance. Built of flint rubble with rendering, the western part of the building appears to date from the 11th or 12th century. A limestone cornice supported by rather crude corbels underlines the base of the roof. To the south, two narrow Romanesque windows flared inwards light the nave. To the north, the bays were later reworked and enlarged. On this same side, a Romanesque doorway was walled up; It allowed the church to connect with a building whose traces of detachment remain. The bell tower was built to the north of the Romanesque nave, extending the western façade. The absence of a connection between the east and west walls of the bell tower and the north wall of the nave clearly indicates that it is an entirely later construction. However, its crowning is much later, as evidenced by its cornice, whose molding is in the classical style. Flanked by obliquely angled buttresses, it is covered with a saddleback roof. The eastern half of the church appears to be an extension built during the Renaissance period. Its ogee-shaped cornice and the decoration of the eastern gable, as well as the moldings of the buttress bands, attest to this dating. A vast rectangular choir then appears to have replaced a semicircular Romanesque apse; the eastern gable and the southern and northern façades were then pierced with networked bays. In the lower part of the north façade, projecting ashlars appear to have supported the roof of a lean-to building. To the south, a sacristy was built in the 19th century. Inside, the entire building is covered with a paneled vault with exposed tie beams and kingposts. The 18th-century high altar is surmounted by an Assumption of the Virgin inspired by Murillo's. For the restoration of the roofs and façades, the Sauvegarde de l'Art Français (French National Art Protection Agency) awarded a grant of €30,490 in 2001.

The church dates from the 12th century and was remodeled in the 15th or 16th century, its buttresses and bell tower date from the 19th century. It houses a wrought iron communion table from the 18th century.

This church contains 14th century wall paintings. These paintings were discovered in 1895. They formerly occupied the entire width of the western wall of the nave. The central part was destroyed following the renovation of the door. The left side represented paradise. Of the bust of Christ, in a trilobed medallion, which occupied the center, there remains only a fragment of the cruciform halo. The rest of the composition is divided into rectangular compartments, each enclosing, in the surviving part, a figure of a crowned chosen one. On the right, hell is represented by a cauldron in which several characters are immersed, including a pope, a bishop, a monk, a king, a queen. Above, a woman with her legs apart. On the right, an enormous horned demon sticks out its tongue. On the left, another carries a basket filled with the damned and is about to plunge a woman into the cauldron. Construction periods: 14th century

This church was originally supposed to be a simple chapel of the commandery, founded in the 12th century by the Templars, forming one side of the courtyard that groups the buildings. The monumental 15th century porch is flanked by two brick towers. The nave ends with a semi-circular apse covered in a cul-de-four. Construction periods: 12th century, 13th century, 15th century

Porte de Boisville Its ogival portal opens into a thick quadrangular massif where there was a room for operating the portcullis. We can still see the groove in the thickness of the walls. On the left and right two small funnel-shaped spaces allowed the defenders to observe and repel the enemies who appeared on the bridge. The gate was topped by a building serving as a guardhouse which was demolished in 1761. The guarding of these doors and their keys was in the troubled times of the Hundred Years' War the subject of concern for the inhabitants and also a source of quarrels and trials between the city and the abbey. This gate is preceded by a bridge of 5 stone arches, the one adjoining the gate was built in 1774 and replaced a drawbridge which defended the entrance.

Bonneval, nicknamed the little Venice of Beauce

The Saint Hilaire church is a vast building from the end of the 11th or 12th century which originally consisted of only a nave with choir and semi-circular apse supported by slightly protruding buttresses made of grison, an extremely hard ferruginous agglomerate which does not allow any work. of sculpture. You can see the primitive work in the walls of the nave and the choir with its small windows and the exterior buttresses in gray. Its appearance was considerably modified during the Renaissance period, when a transept was added, then during a second campaign of transformations, the small side chapels of the choir covered with ribbed vaults with vines and tiers which would have had to be topped with a pavilion roof. The entire monument is covered with a paneled vault with visible beams and hallmarks; above the sanctuary the shingle decorated with arabesques and painted cherubs' heads bears the date 1561. In the 17th century, like many churches of the time, the glass roof at the bottom of the apse was closed to build an altarpiece then fashionable, as it is today with the woodwork that accompanies it. On the west side of the north transept, above the small shed, we can clearly see in the masonry a stone arch which is perhaps the beginning of the cloister mentioned in the archives. In addition to the charm of its Renaissance parts, this church is fortunate to have beautiful furniture from the 17th and 18th centuries which preserves the appearance it had under the Ancien Régime: a lectern dated 1754, modified in 1784 with a antiphonary and a Chartres gradual from 1784. It is in perfect condition, as the cantors must have used it before the revolution. Another valuable piece, the solid oak work bench, cleaned a few years ago of the paint with which it had been decorated, and which now serves as an altar to meet the new standards of the liturgy for the mass facing the faithful.

The 12th century church of Saint Jean-Baptiste de Courtalain, already repaired in 1592, was rebuilt in 1809, increased by an aisle in 1838, then by a remarkable porch bell tower topped with a twelve meter spire. height, thanks to the generosity of the Montmorency family, owner of the castle. It is to Guillaume Davaugour and Perette de Baïf, his wife, that we attribute the erection of the Courtalain chapel into a parish church; The church is located in the immediate perimeter of the castle. The entire building is partly covered with flat tiles for the roof of the nave, the bell tower, the staircase turret; the three cut sides of the apse and the lower north side are covered in natural slate. Inside the nave is a Mutin Cavaillé Coll organ dating from 1936. It contains several interesting paintings.