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Origin and history

The first chapel, dedicated to Saint-Grégoire, was built between 1610 and 1611 by the English Benedictines along the current Saint-Benoît street in Douai. In Gothic style, it had a facade decorated with a rosette and a volute pediment, typical of Jesuit churches. Its five-paned circular bedside and complex reamped windows made it a remarkable building. Abandoned after the departure of the Benedictines in 1793, it was destroyed in 1832 despite debates about its restoration.

In 1840, the Benedictine community of Saint-Edmund, established in Douai since 1816, entrusted the English architect Augustus Pugin with the construction of a new chapel. The latter proposed a neo-Gothic brick building, inspired by English models such as the Oxford or Cambridge chapels. The original project, rejected for its lack of interior division, was modified to include a refectory on the ground floor and a chapel upstairs. The work, financed by English funds, was completed in 1843.

The current chapel is distinguished by its unique nave basilical plan, its broken cradle vault in painted wood, and its absence of exterior decoration. Pugin applied his aesthetic principles, such as the visibility of the bearer structure, a symbol of the Catholic faith. The stained glass, attributed to Pugin but not signed, was made by Hardman & Co, while the paintings of the panel and the gildings of the refectory were executed by British Benedictine monks, the Binnell brothers. The statuary was entrusted to the Belgian sculptor Jan van Arendonck.

The building, which is now part of the Jean-Baptiste Corot High School, retains remarkable elements such as its oak floor inspired by the parquet " Versailles" and its cement tiles on the ground floor, possibly designed by Pugin. The chapel, classified as a Historical Monument in 1975, illustrates the influence of the English neo-Gothic in France and the role of religious communities in the transmission of architectural heritage.

Pugin's sober style, marked by the use of brick and the absence of superfluous ornamentation, recalls his other achievements such as the Cathedral of St. Chad in Birmingham. The interior, with its stalls and its organ stand, evokes the English university chapels, while the visible frame and the iron draughts reflect its attachment to an "honest" architecture, where the structure takes precedence over the decor.

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