Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The church of Saint-André de Lille finds its origins in a first parish founded in 1233, located outside the medieval ramparts on the road of Ypres (present-day rue Saint-André). This early church, damaged by shells during the Austrian siege of 1708, was destroyed in 1784. Its location, at the end of the district near the Vauban rampart, marked the boundary of the enlargement of Lille in 1670, where part of the parish was integrated into the city, while the other gave birth to Saint-André-lez-Lille.

The present building was originally the chapel of the convent of the Grand Carmelites, built between 1701 and 1758 under the direction of three architects from Lille: Thomas-Joseph Gombert (1701-1724), his nephew François-Joseph Gombert (1753-1758), and Louis Marie Cordonnier, author of the bell tower added in 1887. The chapel, which became a parish church in 1795 after the destruction of the old one, was closed during the Revolution before being returned to worship. Its architecture combines limestone for the facade with superimposed orders (ionic and corinthian) and brick for the side walls, with a slate roof.

Ranked a historic monument in 1949, the church houses remarkable furniture: paintings from the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries (Arnould de Vuelz, Otto Van Veen, Jacques Van Oost), an oak pulpit carved by Jean-Baptiste Danezan (1768), and two organs Merklin-Schütze (1855 and 1864). His stained glass windows, signed by Charles Gaudelet after Joseph Hussenot, and his cul-de-four fresco (1853) illustrate his rich artistic heritage. The chapel of the Sainte-Vierge, dedicated to Notre-Dame du Mont-Carmel, preserves a altarpiece and panel painted by Alphonse Colas (1850).

The church is linked to major historical figures: General Faidherbe, Cardinal Liénart and General de Gaulle were baptized there, while the national funeral of General François de Négrier took place in 1848. Two priests became bishops: Victor Delannoy (La Réunion, Aire and Dax) and Désiré-Joseph Dennel (Beauvais, Arras), whose cenotaph (1892) is visible in the building.

Its elongated plane (71 m long), without transept, consists of a nave of six spans flanked by bottoms finished with absidioles, and a deep choir of three spans arched in cul-de-four. The 50-metre-high bell tower dominates the Old Lille district, recalling its past and its central role in Lille religious life.

External links