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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours chapel is a Catholic building built in 1673 in Écaillon, in the department of the North (Hauts-de-France). A modest look with its 4 meters high, 5 meters long and 2.73 meters wide, it is distinguished by its baroque wooden altarpiece, decorated with torso columns, garlands and antelots. This altarpiece, dated the same year, illustrates a refined Flemish art, beyond the framework of popular art. The chapel was erected as a thanksgiving for a miracle: the Virgin Mary would have saved a parishioner from drowning, inspiring this place of devotion.

The materials used reflect local resources: a sandstone base extracted from Lewarde quarries, and a brick superstructure. The sober facade features a door in the middle of the skin surmounted by a niche and a brick gable arranged in ears. Inside, the quadrangular and three-sided plan once housed a statue of Virgin with the Child, now kept in town hall. The two lateral oculi, now walled, once illuminated space. The roof, covered with mechanical tiles, completes this simple yet symbolic architecture.

Classified as historical monuments by order of 31 December 1999, the chapel is part of a context of Counter-Reform, where religious buildings were used to affirm the Catholic faith. His term, Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours, also evokes a nearby cross-border pilgrimage to Bonsecours (Belgium). A communal property, it embodies both artistic heritage and collective memory, linked to 17th century local beliefs and traditions.

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