Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2Turner, Dawson
History
Account of a Tour in Normandy, Volume 2
Turner, Dawson
Architecture -- France -- Normandy; Normandy (France) -- Antiquities; Normandy (France) -- Description and travel
On our road between Bernay and Orbec, we stopped at the village of
Chambrais, more commonly called Broglie. Before the revolution, it
belonged to the noble family of that name, and it thence derived its
familiar appellation. The former residence of the Seigneurs of Broglie,
which is still standing, apparently uninjured, upon an adjoining
eminence, has lately been restored to the present Maréchal Duc de
Broglie. It looks like an extensive parish work-house, or like any thing
rather than a nobleman's seat.--The village church is very ancient and
still curious, though in parts considerably modernized. Unlike most
churches of great antiquity, it is not built in the form of a cross, but
consists only of a nave and choir, with side-aisles and an apsis, all on
a small scale[63]. Towards the north, the nave is separated from the
aisle by some of the largest and rudest piers I ever saw. They occupy
full two-thirds of the width of the intervening arches, which are five
feet wide, elliptic rather than semi-circular, and altogether without
ornament of any kind. Above each of these arches is a narrow,
circular-headed window, banded with a cylindrical pilaster; and, in most
instances, a row of quatrefoils runs between the pillar and the window.
The bases of the windows rest upon a string-course that extends round
the whole building; and on this also, alternating with the windows, rest
corbels, from which spring very short, clustered columns, intended to
support the groinings of the roof. On the south side, the massy piers
have been pared into comparatively slender pillars; and the arches are
pointed, as are all the lower windows in the church.--The font is of
stone, and ancient: it consists of a round basin, on a quadrangular
pedestal, like many in England.--The west front of the church is
peculiar. It is entered by a very wide, low, semi-circular door-way, of
rude architecture, and quite unornamented. Above is a window
corresponding with those in the clerestory; and, still higher, a row of
interlaced arches, also semi-circular. A pointed arch, the receptacle
for the statue of a saint, surmounts the whole; but this is, most
probably, of a later æra, as evidently are the two lateral
compartments, which terminate in slender spires of slate, and are
separated from the central division by Norman buttresses.
We stopped to dine at Orbec, a small and insignificant country town,
formerly an appendage of the houses of Orléans and Navarre, with the
title of a barony; but, more immediately before the revolution, the
domain of the family of Chaumont. Its church is a most uncouth edifice:
the plan is unusual; the entrance is in the north transept, which ends
in a square high tower.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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