Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer (canton of Offranville, Seine-Maritime) Church of Sainte Marguerite

    The church of Sainte-Marguerite, a former dependency of the abbey of Saint-Victor-en-Caux, has preserved some very interesting Romanesque elements dating from the 11th and particularly the 12th c. - the apse, the nave north wall and the corresponding aisles, and the west front. The rest of the building - the side-aisles opening onto a square bay, which must originally have been the crossing, and the south side of the nave - were rebuilt during the 16th c. Built in tuff, the north wall of the nave is on two levels, with large arcades, their cylindrical pillars flanked by demi-columns engaged on piers, and tall windows opening amid blind bays, this ornamentation continuing on the rear of the façade. The large arcade archings, with their embattled fret ornament, and their capitals were redone in white limestone during the 19th century. Neither the central vessel nor the side aisles are vaulted. We may also admire in the chancel the only surviving Romanesque altar in the Pays de Caux area. On the outside, the charm of the apse remains intact, with its flat buttresses flanked by columns between which interweaving blind arcades form decorative pointed arches or round arch arcades on the south side. 

Henri 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 Brachy : Sainte-Marguerite-sur-Mer. - Revue des Sociétés savantes de Haute-Normandie, n° 48 : archéologie, préhistoire (n° 12), quatrième