Graville Abbey
The Graville Abbey in Graville-Sainte-Honorine , a district of Le Havre in the French region of Normandy , was built from the 11th century. The buildings were classified as Monuments historiques in 1875 .
history
The abbey, dedicated to Saint Honorine de Graville , was founded as a priory in the 11th century . Document mentions are only passed down around 1200, when it was placed under the collegiate church of Saint-Barbe-en-Auge . Standing high on the rocky coast of the north bank of the Seine , the church offers a wide view of the Calvados coast . The church, standing close to the north slope, is surrounded to the south by a cloister and the convent buildings. The complex was damaged in the Wars of Religion of the 16th century and during the Second World War .
church
The church has a length of 45.50 meters. The facade, the nave and the transept are Romanesque , while the choir dates from the 13th century and was heavily modified in the 19th century. Excavations suggest that there was already a previous church. The north tower now only reaches the height of the nave gable, it is narrow and built on a square floor plan. At the corners it is reinforced by buttresses .
The central nave with six bays is framed by narrow aisles. Round arches resting on pillars connect the nave with the side aisles. All windows on the south side were broken open in the 16th century, while most of the windows on the north side were bricked up. The capitals on the north side have almost exclusively simple corner buds , while those on the south side are figurative. The style difference is likely due to the different construction phases.
The crossing tower stands on a square, slightly drawn-in substructure. The arches that support it are profiled and decorated with recessed stars and zigzag bars. The arches rest on pillars with folded capitals . The corners of the heavily restored crossing tower are provided with pillars that have bud capitals. The two-story tower has coupled windows and is crowned by a slate-roofed spire.
The transept arms originally had apsidioles and are decorated with sculptures on the inside. The exterior of the north arm of the transept shows Romanesque-Norman architectural sculpture, which is dated around the year 1100. The decorative elements consist of a number of large round arches, profiled with very fine round rods, which cross each other. The arch fields and the gussets between the arches are designed in the network association. A frieze made of sculpted elements runs along the front wall .
literature
- Lucien Musset : Romanesque Normandy (East) . Echter Verlag , Würzburg 1987, ISBN 3-429-01090-X , pp. 201-205 and 240-244.
Web links
- Abbaye de Graville in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 49 ° 30 '12.6 " N , 0 ° 9' 53.7" E