Church of Saint Peter of Bouchoir dans la Somme

Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The church of Saint-Pierre de Boucier, located in the Somme department in the Hauts-de-France region, is a Roman Catholic building erected in the 16th century and subsequently modified in the 18th century. Built in brick and limestone according to a traditional basilical plan (nef, transept, choir), it rests partly on a sandstone bed. Her flamboyant Gothic chorus ends with a three-sided apse, while her nave, more sober, is illuminated by semicircular berries. The facade, remodeled in the 18th century, has a gate framed by foothills and surmounted by a circular bay. The bell tower, with an arrow in slate, dominates the whole.

Deeply damaged during the First World War, like the entire village, the church was restored in 1925 by architects Emmanuel Gonse, Charles Duval and Zoppi. Its interior preserves remarkable elements, including a wooden vault in overturned keg, a Romanesque baptismal tank with naive carved motifs, and a statuette of the Virgin with Child (17th century), classified as a historical monument in 2008). The art deco master altar, decorated with enamels and surmounted by a Celtic cross, as well as a mosaic cross path signed by Jean Gaudin, testify to the later additions.

The church also houses a crucifix made clandestinely during the Second World War. This object, made from a door handle and a rosary cross by the deportee Fernand Coudrey, was used by Abbé Émile Lavallard (curé de Boucier from 1938 to 1945, resistant to Mauthausen in 1945) to celebrate Mass in the camps of Falkensee and Mauthausen. Returned after the Liberation, this crucifix was offered to the church by the Abbé's fellow prisoners, thus perpetuating his memory.

The building illustrates both Picardy religious architecture, marked by the use of brick, and the scars of the two world conflicts. Its post-1918 restoration is part of the reconstruction movement of the destroyed churches in northern France, while its furniture reflects centuries of devotion and local history, from the baptismal novels to the tributes of the resistors.

External links