The best walks and hikes around Iviers

Superb village with architecture typical of this region, including this church

This village is listed among the "most beautiful villages in France", but the local star is the church, hidden at the back of the square. Fortified, it only reveals its charms to the most daring. To see it up close, you have to do some strange gymnastics. The neighboring houses, made of red brick, topped with slate, seem to form a continuous enclosure. An integral part of the village's interpretation circuit, open all year round, the church has been specially equipped for visits and offers you the possibility of going upstairs to discover its guard room-refuge!

Parfondeval is said to be one of the most beautiful villages of France. That might be an exaggeration, but its really lovely and has an exemplary "Eglise fortifiée" that can be visited and if you are lucky there will be some guides that give you a free guide tour. In the tourist infromation close by you can also lend a guided tour for the village.

Description: All the walls of the building are brick with a limestone ashlar flashing and with limestone corner chains at the apse of the church. In addition to the presence of a slate essentage on the polygonal bell tower and the gable wall of the choir, the nave is surmounted by a half-hipped roof with a covered gable, the choir by a polygonal croup. The polygonal spire rests on a half-rump in front, the two aisles are covered with a shed. This blanket is slate. The nave and the chancel are covered with a plaster ceiling on a wooden lath.

History: The church was finally completely rebuilt from 1839 in two successive campaigns. In 1839, with the help of a donation from a resident of the city, Marie-Jeanne Elisabeth Séau, a donation of 5,000 francs, the choir was first rebuilt and enlarged, as evidenced by the dating in glazed bricks. From 1843, the dilapidated condition of the ship's coal walls, and its cramped nature, led to various projects and specifications. An architect, unidentified, undoubtedly the departmental architect, was commissioned by the prefect in 1845-46 to propose plans and estimates. After a new donation of 3000 francs by Miss Séau, the ship was rebuilt from November 1847 at an estimated cost of 9443.92 francs. In October 1849, a committee was appointed to oversee the reconstruction of the ship, together with the architect. The work, led by entrepreneur Victorien Splingart, was completed in May 1850. The inauguration of the new building took place on September 24, 1850, probably after the installation of part of the monumental furniture. The cemetery, which was founded and enlarged at the same time in 1882, houses the (studied) grave of Marie-Jeanne Elisabeth Séau, placed symbolically in the axis of the west portal of the church. The tombs, which date from the 2nd half of the 19th and 20th centuries, bear the signature of the most important marble workers active in Thiérache. One of the funerary monuments, that of Lucie Applincourt, dates from 1890, has a cast iron base and cross supplied by the manufacturer and founder Alfred Corneau, from Charleville (Ardennes). (https://invention.hautsdefrance.fr/)