Loisail (canton of Mortagne-au-Perche, Orne) House

    This residence, sometimes referred to as “l'Audience”, is one of the rare vernacular buildings of the Romanesque period to survive in Normandy.
This is a modest manor of the 1180s which belongs to a type referred to as the “hall and chamber-block”, which was well known on both sides of the Channel at the time and combined a large hall and rooms built in this case on two levels above a basement used as a store.
Apart from the facade wall, which has been re-worked, the original walls are built in regular medium bond sandstone. The elevations are reinforced in the corners and at the middle of the smaller sides by large flat buttresses. The original openings, which have all been blocked up, are fully arched: a single window on the ground floor and large geminate bays on the first floor. At the top of the gable an oculus lit the loft.
On the inside, at the back of the hall, there is still a chimney framed by two columns with bases and Romanesque capitals.


Bibliography

Desvaux, A. "Loisail", Bulletin historique et archéologique de l'Orne, t. XXV, 1905, p. 28-32
-  L'art roman dans l'Orne, Art de Basse-Normandie, n° 66, été 1975, p. 38
- "Loisail", les siècles romans en Basse-Normandie, Art de Basse-Normandie, n° 92, printemps 1985, p. 152
- Impey, E. "La demeure seigneuriale en Normandie entre 1125 et 1225 et la tradition anglo-normande", in : l'Architecture normande au Moyen-Age, t. I, Caen-Condé, 1997, p. 219-241, spécialement p. 226