Attractions and Places To See around Beauchêne - Top 7

The Saint-Barthélémy church dates from the 12th century but was restored and enlarged in the 17th and then in the 19th century. The elegant bell tower, formed of a square tower, becomes octagonal at 20 m high. Small loophole-type windows light the belfry. It is topped by a dome, itself topped by a campanile and a lantern. It is considered a case study by schools of architecture. This church also contains several movable objects classified as Historic Monuments including Christ on the Cross, a polychrome wooden statue from the 17th century, two oils on canvas from the 17th century, a funerary plaque from 1674 by Michel de Verthamon, Knight of Malta, in stone and marble (epitaph in Latin and coat of arms) and a bronze bell, tuned in F, from 1580.

The church of Notre-Dame de l’Assomption stands on a hill, a little away from the village of Chauvigny from which it is separated by the cemetery. It is built on the site of a former priory dependent on the abbey of Marmoutier, founded between 1116 and 1136 by Barthélemy de Vendôme. In 1342, Marmoutier abandoned the priory to the bishop of Chartres while retaining the appointment to the parish. It is a large church, whose initial core, probably from the 12th century (?), was considerably enlarged in the 16th, then in the 19th century. Originally, it consisted of a single nave supported by buttresses, whose flat chevet was later pierced by a large window with a pointed arch axis. In the 16th century, a first aisle was added to the south, separated from the central nave by four semicircular arches resting on circular pillars. In the 17th century, the choir was shortened by the erection of the large altarpiece of the high altar which isolates the space of a sacristy. Finally, in 1860-1863, the church was again enlarged by the construction of a north aisle, identical to the one that existed to the south. The district architect Édouard Marganne, responsible for this enlargement, also designed a new western façade in order to harmonize the gable walls of the three naves. The church is distinguished by a large set of paneling covering the walls of the three sanctuaries. Seventy-seven sculpted panels from the 16th and 17th centuries are inserted there, representing biblical characters and scenes from the life of Christ. As indicated by an inscription in the south chapel, they were donated to the parish in 1938, after the destruction of the chapel of the Château de la Gaudinière, which stood in the Fréteval forest. They were apparently brought back from Menton in 1867 by the Duke of La Rochefoucauld to adorn his château, which was then under construction. The church also preserves a small stone group from the 16th century representing the education of the Virgin, a painted wooden Saint Gildéric from the 17th century, and a beautiful portrait of Mgr Fleuriau d’Armenonville, Bishop of Orléans, commemorating his solemn entry into the city of Orléans in 1707. To participate in the restoration of the church roof, the Sauvegarde de l’Art français granted a donation of €5,000 in 2011.

This church contains 14th century wall paintings. These paintings were discovered in 1895. They formerly occupied the entire width of the western wall of the nave. The central part was destroyed following the renovation of the door. The left side represented paradise. Of the bust of Christ, in a trilobed medallion, which occupied the center, there remains only a fragment of the cruciform halo. The rest of the composition is divided into rectangular compartments, each enclosing, in the surviving part, a figure of a crowned chosen one. On the right, hell is represented by a cauldron in which several characters are immersed, including a pope, a bishop, a monk, a king, a queen. Above, a woman with her legs apart. On the right, an enormous horned demon sticks out its tongue. On the left, another carries a basket filled with the damned and is about to plunge a woman into the cauldron. Construction periods: 14th century

The church has a very pretty Renaissance-style choir entrance. Certain stained glass windows, the woodwork of the choir, the altarpieces and the font are classified. The current church, rectangular in plan, replaced a 12th century building. The flat bedside and the north wall, equipped with Romanesque windows and slightly projecting buttresses, date from this period. It was rebuilt and probably enlarged in the first half of the 16th century. It was then covered with beautiful paneling, the beams of which bear the arms of the Vove, lords of Saint-Agil. The church is also flanked to the south by a seignorial chapel of two bays opening onto the nave with two molded semi-circular arches: its ribbed vaults, with eight ribs leading to the four peaks of a central diamond, are each decorated with four sculpted pendant keys, one of which also bears the arms of the Vove; the date 1547 can be read on its door. The church is currently preceded by a bell tower built in 1886 by Mr. Travaillard, an architect in Saint-Calais. A window to the south of the choir has preserved a partly restored 16th century stained glass window, representing Saint-Agil and Saint-Fiacre, and one of the windows of the seigneurial chapel has another, representing the Nativity, the Adoration of the Shepherds and the Adoration of the Magi; the other window of this chapel has a modern stained glass window retaining some old fragments in the speckles. The choir was decorated with woodwork including an entrance arcade surmounted by a crucifix, stalls, a communion table and an altarpiece, the latter dated 1734. We can also point out a font decorated with balusters and of a skull (1552), the poetic epitaph of Catherine-Geneviève de Verthamont (1740), a painting representing a martyr (17th century), a Louis XV console and a Venetian glass chandelier.”

Around 1240, the Benedictines, who had a priory within the walls of the castle of Mondoubleau, having had to abandon it, settled near Choue. Of the buildings, only the chapel remains. The western gable is pierced with a double archivolt door in third point and projecting cord, chamfered. Above, a bay was flanked by two six-lobed oculi. On the western part of the southern gutter wall, a door gave access to a small room which could have been the lower room of a square tower, perhaps a bell tower. Inside, the walls were plastered.