The best traffic-free bike rides around La Chapelle-Souëf

very beautiful village with drinking and eating facilities

The priory was founded at the beginning of the 11th century and is dedicated to Saint Gauburge (or Walburge), abbess of a large Bavarian monastery in the 8th century. Originally owned by the lords of Bellême, it passed, from the 12th century, to the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis-en-France. From the end of the 15th century, it was directly dependent on royal power until the Revolution. An important rural estate, its buildings bear witness to its special status and the magnitude of its revenues. Since 1972, it has housed the headquarters of the Perche Ecomuseum, which bears witness to the peasant life of the Perche and develops a diverse cultural program.

The small church of Dame Marie was part of a large priory founded in the 11th century under the control of Jumièges Abbey. The monks left the priory between 1701 and 1789, and it was sold as national property in 1792. In 1850, an imposing bell tower porch was built, which was demolished in 2006 and replaced by the current shingled bell tower, allowing the reconstruction of the old Romanesque porch.

A lovely artist's village not to be missed.

The nave is covered with a wooden vault with exposed beams. The archivolts of the Romanesque door are decorated with saw teeth. The west gable wall is topped with a slender bell tower. The interior contains three classical altars whose designs were apparently made by Mansard at the request of Louvois, owner of the Prairie de Marcilly.

A male yew* was planted near the entrance to the church, once surrounded by the cemetery. Its double trunk supports a crown that hides part of the building. This funerary tree is the only significant plant in the crossing of the town, whose name evokes another species that has become rare: the field elm. The church is accessed through a porch (heavily restored) recalling the Romanesque origins of the building, confirmed by the narrow and high semicircular bay above it. During the Renaissance, the nave was enlarged by two chapels lit by windows with flamboyant tracery. The flat chevet was pierced by three bays in a pointed arch forming a "triplet", from the 13th century, probably walled up at the beginning of the 18th century when the high altar was installed. In the choir: high altar (early 18th century - Cl. MH) with armorial medium-relief** in terracotta, "The Transfiguration", after Raphael; gilded wooden statues of Saint Godegrand and Saint Opportune On the gable wall of the south chapel, between a corner buttress and a Gothic window, a sundial was painted in 1991, on the site of an old one. * The yew is a dioecious species: the male and female plants grow separately. Only the female flowers will give rise to the arils, a kind of fleshy bright red berry containing a single, toxic seed. ** Offered by the abbess of Saint-Julien du Pré, in Le Mans, Catherine d'Aumont, who died in 1708, whose coat of arms was: "argent with a chevron gules accompanied by seven martlets of the same, four in chief 2 and 2, three in base 1 and 2".

ECOLR oak

The Saint-Rémy church is one of these churches surrounded by their cemetery and a surrounding wall forming a parish enclosure. In the cemetery, a cut boxwood path leads to the entrance to the church which is via a bell tower-porch. The latter, square and low, is topped with a spire covered in slate, like the rest of the church. The sacristy, at the rear of the apse, is covered in tiles. The church consists of a single nave onto which two small chapels open, dedicated respectively to the Sacred Heart and the Virgin. Unpretentious from the outside, the Saint-Rémy church is however not without surprises. The choir, slightly narrower than the nave, is decorated with monumental paintings evoking the Passion of Christ (19th century). The choir vault is also painted. The altarpiece, with black marble columns, has in its center a beautiful high-relief panel representing the Baptism of Christ (limestone, early 18th century). The altars (Main altar and altars in the side chapels) are in pink and black marble (18th century). A choir enclosure, decorated with two angels, separates the choir from the nave (19th century). Two beautiful wooden confessionals with carved pediments (17th century), set into the wall, frame the entrance to the interior of the nave. At the entrance to the bell tower-porch, you can admire the coat of arms of François Bohier, dated 1553. He was the dean of the chapter of Tours on which the cure of Sérigny then depended. These stones were found in 1972, in the gable of the church, during the renovation of the sacristy. The four historic stained glass windows are from the 20th century (one is dated 1939) and obviously come from the same workshop but are not signed.