Etretat (canton of Criquetot-l'Esneval, Seine-Maritime) Church of Notre-Dame

    The church at Etretat used to belong to Fécamp Abbey. All that survives of the fine early 12th c. Romanesque edifice is the façade and the first six bays of the nave. The last two bays, the transept, with its lantern tower, and the chancel were rebuilt in a very elegant Gothic style in c. 1200.

The nave elevation is on two levels : large arcades communicating with the side aisles, and tall windows above a horizontal plain moulding. On the first level, powerful single cylinder columns, with mostly just rough cut capitals, support circular arches decorated with herringbone or embattled fret. The Romanesque part of the nave was originally not vaulted. The west front is beautiful but austere. Bounded by two flat buttresses, the gable end is bare but for the fine door, with arching decorated with various geometrical patterns around a tympanum added in 1866.

Henry Decaëns

Bibliography

- Carment-Lanfry, Anne-Marie. – "Les églises romanes dans les anciens archidiaconés du Grand Caux et du Petit Caux au diocèse de Rouen : doyenné de Valmont : Etretat." - Revue des Sociétés savantes de Haute-Normandie, n° 26 : préhistoire, archéologie (n° 7), deuxième trimestre 1962, p. 34-39.