The best traffic-free bike rides around Saint-Maur-Sur-Le-Loir

Saint Mames was martyred in Cappadocia around 1274: local legend has it that a saint offers a helping hand to cross the Loir. On April 17, 1707, thunder struck the bell tower.

The church consists of a single nave, extended by a single-bay choir, and a semicircular apse. Two canted chapels, forming a false transept, were added during this renovation. The church is dominated by a timber-framed bell tower that rises above the first bay of the nave. The gable of the western facade was rebuilt in the last century, an external wooden porch removed. The central axis of the current facade is punctuated by a semicircular door surmounted by an archivolt, a circular opening on the first level and a small window pierced in the upper part of the gable. On the north side, a highly raised stringcourse forming a cornice, resting on simple modillions, still survives in the upper part of the wall. Additional openings were added to the old, narrow, and uneven openings in the last century, in the nave, as well as in the choir and apse, to allow more daylight to enter the building. The interior of the church is covered with a paneled roof structure: the one covering the nave is believed to date from the 16th century. The entire structure has been given a coherent decoration, from the faux-stone plasterwork to the paneled vault, the furnishings, and the statuary. The church also boasts a 17th-century polychrome wooden statue of Saint Barbara. The Prunelé coat of arms appears at the bottom of the stained-glass window of Saint Louis and, outside, on a medallion on the apse wall. The Sauvegarde de l'Art Français (French National Art Protection Agency) granted €5,000 in grants in 2004 for masonry and roof repairs and the installation of drainage.

The Henri Ey Hospital Center is a departmental public health establishment, specialized in psychiatry, which provides a mission of prevention and reception, care, aftercare and reintegration in mental health in Eure-et-Loir. It provides care in adult, child and adolescent psychiatry, as well as a medico-social activity in the field of geriatrics and psychological and mental disabilities.

The Sainte Christine church represents a heritage of the rural and religious world characteristic of Beauce, the "breadbasket" of France since the Middle Ages. The Romanesque nave dates from the 12th century and was given a bell tower in the 18th century. The spire then peaked at 28 meters high, visible from afar from the surrounding countryside. In 1835, a hurricane damaged the roof of the bell tower. In 1893, lightning ignited the spire which burned almost entirely. The traces are still visible today. It would take almost 25 years for the church to regain its bell tower, reduced by half to 17 meters in height. The heritage to be restored is in line with the many religious buildings in this area such as the Saint Sébastien church in Baignolet, listed as a Historic Monument.

Unfortunately, the church was not accessible when I visited (mid-September 2024). You could only look in through a gate and the dance of death depictions on the left side were not really visible. In front of them were transparencies with skeleton drawings. Maybe those were the depictions...

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

This large neo-Renaissance style fountain was inaugurated in 1860 to symbolize the arrival a few years earlier of a modern drinking water supply system in the upper town. It is topped by a dome with lantern and a phoenix, this mythical bird which is reborn from its ashes and which perfectly symbolizes the rebirth of the city after fires, the most important of which was the dramatic fire of 1723.