The best road cycling routes around Saint-Hilaire-Sur-Erre

The church of Saint-Germain, located in the middle of the village, has a massive character accentuated by the embankment of the departmental road on the north side. The building shows three construction periods: to the north, the imposing square stone bell tower with a pyramid roof dates back to the 12th century; the nave, extended by a choir with a flat chevet, is covered with shingles with a tie-beam and collar-beam roof structure, perhaps dating from the 14th century; to the north and south, two side aisles, each of two bays, were added at the beginning of the 16th century, forming a transept opening onto the nave through pointed arches. These aisles are vaulted with quadripartite vaults with prismatic mouldings; to the south, the former seigneurial chapel has been joined to the aisle. The heavy silhouette of the monument is due to the fact that the side aisles were covered in line with the tiled roof of the main nave, contrary to the custom of the Perche region which favours the covering of each bay of the side aisles with separate roofs resting on transverse gables. The bell tower has two storeys topped by a cornice with modillions; it is buttressed by flat white stone buttresses. The upper storey is pierced by small bays, opening onto the belfry. This bell tower has a square lower hall vaulted with transverse arches, resting on capitals with simple foliage supported by engaged colonnettes at each corner. To the east, a pointed arch opening, now fitted with a stained-glass window, led to a small apse whose arrises were still visible before the work in 1974. This bell tower may have been built around 1190, at a time when Hugues de Thagaric and his wife Anne de Doncourt gave half of the church of Préaux to the Hôtel-Dieu of Nogent-le-Rotrou. This lord of Préaux had gone to England, qualified as seneschal, managing the property of the Count of Perche, Geoffroy V, and his wife Mathilde of Saxony, niece of Richard the Lionheart. The nave and choir form a rectangular space. The west facade has a beautiful pink rendering. It is finished with surmonts and opens with a large door and a window remodelled in the 19th century. The main decorative elements of the church are the high altar, with a pretty gilded wooden tabernacle from the late 17th century, reassembled in 1846 after the raising of the choir; the altars of the side chapels are dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Mary Magdalene. The seven 16th-century stone and terracotta statues, which had been buried in the bell tower embankment, have been replaced there. Also noteworthy is the keystone with the arms of France in the south chapel and, on the wall, a pencil drawing certainly representing Pierre de Fontenay, sieur de la Reinière, a local man who actively led the reconquest of the Perche in the name of King Henry IV. It shows the silhouette of a town with a high keep which could be that of Bellême, of which Fontenay was governor. A commemorative stained-glass window of the 1914-1918 war is also to be noted. For the repair of the church roof, the Sauvegarde de l'Art français granted a donation of €34,000 in 2009.

This ancient fortified castle dominates the Huisne Valley at 360° with its imposing keep. The building, with its troubled history, has undergone numerous modifications in its architecture and functions. A visit is essential to understand the complexity of its history and to observe the architectural evolutions.

The church of Saint-Germain-des-Grois, dedicated to Saint Germain, is a charming church in the canton of Rémalard in the heart of Perche. Built in the Romanesque style with its 12th-century choir, it was considerably enlarged during the 15th and 16th centuries, the periods in which the construction of the side aisles took place. The church was under the jurisdiction of the abbey of Saint-Lomer-de-Blois for its presentation to the parish priest. Its curious exterior volume attracts even more attention as the right wing of a building adjoining the church largely obscures the left side of its façade, in line with the aisle; this construction, moreover, resembles that of an old priory. The building consists of a nave of three bays, flanked by side aisles opening onto the central nave through large arches with a broken profile resting on large circular piers and a choir of one bay in the extension of the central nave ending in a flat chevet. A modest sacristy adjoins the building to the southeast. Outside, the side aisles are covered with successive gables, with the exception of the first bay of the north aisle covered by a square-plan, squat bell tower whose exterior volume, close to that of a bell tower, barely dominates the roof of the building which leans against its base. The three gables covering the right aisle do not follow an identical profile, the slope of the framework and the roof of the first of them, to the west, having been the subject of a significant restoration in the 19th century. At the same time, the two gables of the north aisle were also restored. As for the choir, of smaller volume, it has retained on its north and south sides a cornice with modillions; it constitutes the oldest part of the building. Inside, the nave is covered with a recently restored paneled vault, while the side aisles are vaulted on ribbed vaults, the ribs of which are received by ornate corbels. The church is lit thanks to the large bays with radiating tracery pierced in the walls of the side aisles. Among the notable elements of the furniture, it is worth mentioning the two monumental stone altarpieces which adorn the side altars, works of the 17th and 18th centuries; that of the south aisle houses statues of Saint Sebastian, Saint Joseph and Saint Germain and a finely worked gilded wooden tabernacle from the 17th century, with a dome and small columns. For drainage, the restoration of the masonry, particularly the buttresses, and for the restoration of the lower roof of the bell tower, the Sauvegarde de l’Art français granted a grant of 70,000 F in 1999.

The Saint-Hilaire church is of Romanesque origin and was built in the 11th century by the monks of Saint-Gratien de Tours. It was remodeled in the 16th century, and disfigured in the 19th.

The priory was founded at the beginning of the 11th century and is dedicated to Saint Gauburge (or Walburge), abbess of a large Bavarian monastery in the 8th century. Originally owned by the lords of Bellême, it passed, from the 12th century, to the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis-en-France. From the end of the 15th century, it was directly dependent on royal power until the Revolution. An important rural estate, its buildings bear witness to its special status and the magnitude of its revenues. Since 1972, it has housed the headquarters of the Perche Ecomuseum, which bears witness to the peasant life of the Perche and develops a diverse cultural program.

A must-see that overlooks the valley.

Church built in the 12th and 16th centuries. Listed apse from the 12th century. 4-storey bell tower. Corner buttress bell with staircase turret. Renaissance portal. Large Gothic window above the portal. 16th century roof and nave. Stone statue of a bishop, 16th century paintings.

The Saint-Martin church, listed as a Historic Monument, is located in Nocé, Normandy. It was probably built in the 12th century near the ruined and abandoned Nocé castle after the Hundred Years' War. Originally, the church was surrounded by a cemetery that was moved in the 18th century. In the 15th century, the walls were razed and the Romanesque framework of the nave replaced by a new paneled framework. In the 16th century, after the troubles of the Hundred Years' War, the building was modified: a single large roof was built in place of the various previous volumes and the framework was transformed, a new chapel was added against the south facade and a stone bell tower was built to the right of the nave. This tower, square from base to top, stands twenty meters high. The church is composed of a rectangular nave, three bays and a choir with a Romanesque semicircular chevet. A succession of three chapels opens a side aisle separated from the nave by pillars. The chapels are covered with ribbed vaults. A sacristy is fitted out behind the church. Note the altarpiece and the tabernacle in painted and gilded wood with steps, installed in the choir and lit by two bays with tracery, a painting presenting the disciples of Emmaus and one of the Annunciation, as well as a polychrome terracotta statue and a stone statue of Saint Madeleine without forgetting a stone statue of Our Lady of Pity.