Sainneville (canton of Saint-Romain-de-Colbosc, Seine-Maritime) Church of St Maclou

    The church of Sainneville is characteristic of buildings dating from the first half of the 12th century. All that survives from that period is the nave and most of the transept; the rest of the building - the chancel and the two side chapels - was rebuilt during the 16th and 17th centuries. The façade has kept its Romanesque door, nowadays protected behind a modern porch; the voussoir ornamentation - two rows of herringbone and a thick cable moulding - is distinctive in that it carries on onto the square pillars, i.e. down to the ground. The nave, which was never vaulted, has a two-storey elevation, with large arcades communicating with side aisles, and tall windows above a torus-shaped moulding. The large round, slightly raised arcades rest on cruciform pillars. The bays are spaced with demi-columns reaching to the top of the walls. The capitals are decorated with various ornaments, gadroons, foliations, confronting beasts and grimacing men and women's heads. Only the south side of the Romanesque transept is well preserved; it opens to the west onto the nave aisles through an arch decorated with embattled fret; on the east side, it must have given onto oriented chapels that no longer exist except for the entrance arches, decorated with several rows of herringbone, which are still there. On the outside, there is a fine door decorated with bezant, herringbone and pearl patterns.

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 Saint-Romain de Colbosc : Sainneville." - Revue des Sociétés savantes de Haute-Normandie, n° 44 : Préhistoire, archéologie (n° 11), quatrième trimestre 1966, p. 21-25