Visit an abbey church

Name: Visit an abbey church
Start: 2021-09-18T14:30:00+02:00
End: 2021-09-19T18:00:00+02:00
Location: Église abbatiale

Free visit and discovery of the important restoration work of the church.

18 and 19 September 2021Passed

Conditions

Free. Free entrance. Welcome by the members of the association of friends of the abbey church which ensures its restoration and maintenance.

©Destrez Gilbert

Free visit and discovery of the important restoration work of the church.

The abbey of La Chalade offers a unique feature in the East of France. It is the only Cistercian abbey preserved almost entirely despite the trials of time and history. If the abbey church has survived, while all the others have disappeared or only a few ruins remain, it owes it to its situation as a parish church.

About the location

Église abbatiale

Rue du Couvent, 55120 Lachalade

Meuse
Grand Est

Church built between 1320 and 1340 in the Gothic style using a material of the country, the gaize, a yellow and agave sandstone, present in the basement of all the Argonne. The abbey, which was converted into a first aid post in 1914-1918, was relatively spared while the village was destroyed, but was severely damaged when a string of bombs fell on the adjoining cemetery in 1940.
Several stained-glass windows are greyish, dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century, the only case of Cistercian greyish in Lorraine: the large rose window of the fifteenth century (7 meters in diameter) comes from the abbey of Saint-Vanne de Verdun.
Extensive restoration work has been carried out on the bedside and is underway on the west façade.